Finishing Reception Touches

Hi Meggles ...

Tell us a bit more about your wedding / theme / colours etc and I'm sure we'll be able to give you some ideas!!

One popular thing I'm doing at the moment are charms to put on wine glasses - especially for the top table as a little extra keepsake ...

Are you having any entertainment during the reception? We had a magician come comedian who was a real hit! Not quite a finishing touch right enough but ....

Anyhow - spill the beans! Tell tell tell!

Well that's the thing.. I'm just starting out! We don't have the venue yet but theres a barn i like the look of as its a pretty, blank canvas.

We are having a jazz band in the evening and there'll be lots of lanterns and fairy lights and candles etc to lighten the room as its quite dark

My dad is a pastor, although isn't currently registered so we're having a civil ceremony a few days before, but doing the big kaboodle with my dad giving us a blessing- which is what we'll invite the guests to.

I want it to be really sweet, and intimate and just really relaxed

Sorry im not being very certain- as i said- i'm just daydreaming at the moment!

x

Meggles - why don't you put out CDs for guests to burn their pics onto instead of disposable cameras? h2b's bro did disposable cams for his stag, and only had about 5 decent pics from 5 cameras! most people will tend to have digital cameras anyway...

good idea about the favours - you can also get pins as opposed to ribbons which always go down well. h2b and i are also doing a give in celebration page instead of a gift list - instead of our guests giving us pressies, they will (hopefully) be making donations to cancer research uk (h2b lost his mum to cancer 3 years ago)

love the idea of sky lanterns, but our reception venue is very very close to the m20 (and an over pass part of it too) so don't want to risk any crashes!

whereabouts in the uk are you?

Hey-

I'm from Herts, He's from Ealing...

The venues im looking at are in the middle of the countryside so im hoping lanterns will be ok!

We've been in a bit of a pickle choosing venues as we're looking anywhere south of Nottingham (i.e. the whole country!)

We personalised champagne glasses for everyone, and they doubled up as place cards. It was really easy, if a bit fiddly, you can by special transfer paper, print he designs on an injet printer, then they become a transfer to stick on the glass. We got the glasses £2 for 6, so real bargain favours! We also gave each gust a mini champers bottle for the toast, it was great as we told the venue it was favours, and they didn't charge corckage for them. They were £1.60 each in Frace, much cheaper then the toast drink opackage from the venue. (I make myself sound a cheapskate, but it was all about gettin g valuie for the money we spent!!)

As a surprise I also had cake topper made too, no one know about them, I included my OH's daugher and our dog!

Gorgeous ideas! x

I like the cake topper!

I'm planning to make cakes for everyone. I think something personal is always nice - I've always been good at baking! Little buns in small boxes, that they can have with the coffee.

Hi,

We had Sky Lanterns and they went down a storm

The other thing that the guests talked about was our centre pieces because we put waterproof lights at the bottom so it added a bit of something to the tables and at night they were lovely

They were clear lights but have appeared blue in this picture

This pic doesn't show the vase lighting up that well but in real life you could tell

Good luck with all your planning. x

I'm pretty much at the beginning of my planning like you! Get hitched on 2.10.10 in a barn on the Essex/Suffolk border. We are going for quite a laid back, handmade vibe. Some finishing touch things on my 'want' list so far are:

Naming the tables after cities we have visited together - with a arty / vintage pic of the city stuck on card maybe with a line about or visit or an appropriate quote about the city / love / marriage from a poem, song or book
Wine charms instead of traditional favours
Putting the meaning of people's names on their place card
Limoncello as a digestif drink after the meal (we love Italy),
Prosecco with blueberries in the bottom of the glass as the 'welcome drink' to match our colour theme
Montage of hen / stag photos in the ladies / gents loos
Basket of toiletries for 'freshening up' in the loos
Possibly an area with photos of H2B and me at different ages
Considered wedding photos from our parents, grandparents etc but there has been a few divorces so don't want to offend people by having their pic there or excluding them
We have 7 toddlers on the invite list - if their parents decide to bring them we will have a children's corner with age appropriate toys, fancy dress, books, cushions
Might make confetti using biodegradable paper and put it into little pouches
Even though it will be a civil ceremony will have 'Programmes' with details on who is who in the bridal party, words to the readings, order of the day, seating plan for the meal etc.
Thinking about either going down the CD route for people to put there photos on or setting up a filesharing account on Flickr
Thinking about having a sweetie table
If we were to have a summer wedding I would have put a basket of flip flops out for people with tired feet (cheap Primark / Tesco ones). Not sure that will work in Oct but could do the same with umbrellas!

None of these are original by the way - in fact most of the ideas came from Hitched!

Ask around on peoples opinions on the cameras. People I have spoken to have said hugeeee waste of money so think about that one carefully.

We're having the "old fashioned" disposables on the tables and also giving out blank disks so we can get copies of everyones, just to cover off all bases....

I quite like the disposable cam idea as most people will forward us their pics anyway- We just might get some funnies- It wont be too expensive as i have found some that are 3 for a tenner with free processing!

We booked our venue this weekend- have decided on www.thepriory.net- absolutely gorgeous- Now i can get to look at all the pretty little details!

yay!