 When planning the decorations that you are going to put on your wedding tables, you need to take into account your colour theme and your own ideas of the ideal way to decorate, but you also need to think about the space there will be available for decorations after all the essential items have been accommodated - like cutlery, crockery and glasses etc.
The most frequently used decorations for wedding tables are fresh flowers, and these will always be a wonderful decoration, particularly when arranged by a florist and placed to create the maximum impact as you enter the wedding reception room. They can, however, be expensive, and this can be a drawback when you have ten or more tables to decorate as well as your top table. One option here is to use artificial flowers - often significantly cheaper than real flowers, and the manufacturers are getting very good indeed at making them incredibly life like.
So, what we have put together here is some ideas that might help you to decorate effectively, but on a slightly tighter budget!.
First, do think about the space you have available. Check the tables that are going to be used, and the number of people that will be seated at each table. If possible, visit your venue when before your wedding day on a day when it has been dressed for another wedding. This way you'll be able to size up just what has to go on the table and what room that leaves for decorations.
The essentials for any wedding table are the place settings (the cutlery, crockery, glasses - and remember that there are usually more than one knife and fork for each setting, and usually more than one glass), napkins or serviettes, place cards, table number stand, salt and pepper, butter dish etc. This leaves surprisingly little room!!
So what decorations are good to include, and won't make space too tight?
A table centrepiece is usual, and whilst this can always be flowers, it might perhaps be balloons as an alternative. The great things about helium filled balloons are:
- they are colourful and can be arranged to co-ordinate with the colours of your wedding
- they stand above the table and create both a table and a room decoration in one
- they take up very little space on the table itself (usually just a space for the weight holding the balloons down (which can also be colour co-ordinated, or provided in the shape of two conjoined hearts to symbolise the meaning of the day))
- they are easy to arrange in advance
There are other forms of table centrepiece that work just as well, and these can range from a candle or candles to an ornament, a photograph relevant to the day, or a foil decoration in a suitable colour
Favours take up little space, are very well received by guests and can again be co-ordinated in terms of colour to fit with your day. Favours can be provided in colourful organza bags, or in little boxes that have been decorated with satin or organza ribbon chosen to match your colour scheme. You might even be able to get confectionery for your favours in matching colours as well.
The place cards you provide to tell people where they are sitting can be a part of your decorations, and you might choose to have place cards that co-ordinate with your invitations and order of service, or you might decorate plain ones with something that fits the theme of the day.
The napkins or serviettes that you use can become part of the decorations. Either you can get your napkins in a colour that co-ordinates or you can use white napkins and tie them with ribbon of the right colour, and maybe add a little artificial tea rose or lily or another flower to the napkin, tied with the ribbon. This can look really lovely.
Table petals can be a lovely way of adding colour to the table, and decorating those areas of the table that might otherwise look a little bare, and you can get petals in a wide range of colours. Because real (usually freeze dried) petals are very expensive, we offer paper petals which look very real and are extremely effective for wedding tables, and for other special occasions too.
The alternative to petals is metallic table confetti. This is available in a myriad of shapes, sizes , designs and colours. The most frequently found are doves, hearts and wedding bells, and they again come in a variety of colours, but remember that you need to get permission from your venue to use it (not all of them like it as it tends to come in very small pieces and can take a bit of clearing up afterwards) and it goes further than you think. You don't need anything like a packet per table as it spreads very well indeed, and you don't want to cover the table surface, just provide a little decoration.
A garland can work very well as a table decoration, particularly for your top table. Draped along the front of the table a garland in the right colours can be very effective, and add something special to the special table.
Most of these decorations, with the exception of the fresh flowers, can be found on our website. Just go to "Wedding" on the menu at the top right of every page, and then select from the list under Party Decorations. Find all you need at So Raise Your Glasses, the Quality Celebration Store.
You might find our table decoration suggestions in a variety of colours useful for ideas:
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