Vintage Wedding Decor

Vintage Wedding Decor

 

I look forward to the days following Valentine’s Day  rather than Valentines Day itself. Here’s why, it is a great time to pick up decoration items for weddings! Every store sells off rose petals to trinkets, candles to cushions so it’s the perfect time to find unique and cost affective bits and bobs for table decoration, guest bags and favors.

At this time of year lots of websites that are in anyway romantically inclined have Valentine ideas which you can ‘steal’ for your wedding. Here are some great vintage touches I found on The Graphics Fairy which has lots of free vintage style ‘downloadables’ which are handy for wedding stationary and wedding decor. Use the ones below to add vintage touches to table wine, and cupcakes.

 

Mini Champagne Tower Centre Pieces

Mini Champagne Tower Centre Pieces

This is a gorgeous center piece idea for wedding tables!  Have waiting staff fill the mini champagne towers simultaneously for the first toast.

Alternatives:

Add a fun element to the wedding and elect one person from each table to pour at the time of the cake cutting – just don’t use the expensive champers!

Use the stacked glasses for mousse desserts

Fill with acrylic table sprinkles to reflect the light and colour theme.

How To Preserve A Wedding Bouquet

How To Preserve A Wedding Bouquet

One way to dry a wedding bouquet is to hang the bouquet upside down as soon as you can after the wedding. This helps the flowers to keep their original shape as they air-dry. The air-drying process will take a while, so it could take a month for them to dry.

Spraying them with hair spray immediately following the wedding before hanging them upside down, creates a sort of layer of protection around the petals and can shield the flowers from losing their original shape.

There are companies that freeze-dry wedding bouquets which will keep it looking on-the-day-fresh for decades to come. 

Here’s a UK company that offers freeze-drying bouquet preserving, wholesale freeze-dried rose petals for confetti and pre-freeze dried bouquets which some brides use for destination weddings:

PETALSANDROSES.COM

 

 

How To Build a Champagne Tower

How To Build a Champagne Tower

A champagne tower is essentially made up of successively smaller layers of squares. You’ll need a spillage tray as a base on a solid table. Start with a layer of 5 glasses on the bottom, then 4, then 3, 2 and 1.

Make sure each glass touches the surrounding glasses. When done right, there will be a diamond-shaped gap between each glass.

The stem centre of the glasses on the next layer should be over the diamond openings of the layer below.

Repeat this assembly process until there is a single glass on top.

Practice with 15 glasses and then double the size if you are brave!

Once fully assembled, begin slowly pouring Champagne into the top glass and it will trickle downward. Practise with fizzy water a few times to gauge how fast you need to pour and the size bottle of champagne you need to use for a constant flow to really impress!

Where to start:

15 glasses – start with a 5 glass base layer

55 glasses – start with a 10 glass base layer

110 glasses – start with a 15 glass base layer

200 glasses (you brave thing!) – start with a base of 20 glasses

Pink and Orange Wedding

Pink and Orange Wedding

I recently coordinated a marquee wedding in Ireland for a couple in Wexford, Ireland. The bride wanted a funky wedding but still have the classy look and suggested a pink and orange colour scheme. We went for shot silk fuchsia pink table cloths and sashes on white chair covers and white linen napkins. The orange was introduced through tissue paper lining in the giant martini glasses that held the predominantly orange exotic flowers. We cooled the colours with a green carpet in the main reception area, but had fuchsia pink carpet in the entrance lounge with low orange seating and light boxes as tables. Outside we had high pod tables with alternating spandex orange and pink covers and an arch of pink and orange flowers. It definately had the desired wow factor!

Wedding Guests’ Bellies!

wedding guestsBetween getting ready and travelling to the ceremony, guests often don’t have time for lunch so by the time the service is over they are so hungry that they cannot enjoy themselves. They then have to wait until the photography is over which adds to the tummy rumbles. Arriving at the reception venue, guests usually have a drink or two, which is not a good idea on an empty stomach!

A solution is to have a variety of filling canapés on arrival at the reception venue – allow three or four for each guest. This will keep their hunger at bay without spoiling their appetite for dinner.