As you’re planning your wedding, you might pay a great deal of attention to your special day’s unified aesthetic. While your flowers will only be one portion of your overall design, they’ll certainly draw the attention of your friends, family and other guests. Whether you duplicate some of your wedding party and ceremonial floral arrangements or deviate a little from those designs, you’ve got plenty of options when it comes to decorating your reception area.
What Type of Arrangements Do You Need?
In case you need a comprehensive checklist of wedding floral arrangements types, Brides Magazine published an excellent one in an October 2014 blog post. Some typical kinds of flowers you’ll find at most receptions include centerpieces, chair decorations for both halves of the newlywed couple and cake table arrangements. It’s a good idea to start with these three items as your first points of focus, then base the designs of your other decorations on them. If you’re enlisting the help of a florist, he or she will be able to guide you into specific styles and options for your venue.
Start With the Basics: Centerpieces
Table centerpieces are intended to be sizeable and eye-catching, but not so unwieldy that they detract from eating, drinking and socializing during a meal. The size, shape and seating capacities of your tables should guide you into choosing appropriate arrangements: the smaller the table, the smaller the centerpiece. You might fall in love with more elaborate designs supported by tall, skinny vases or stands. Nevertheless, keep in mind that these styles work best on larger tables that seat eight guests or more. Their heights are purposeful, engineered to allow your family and friends to easily see each other as they’re chatting and watching the festivities during dinner.
Other Decorations Enhance Your Reception Space
Using your centerpieces as a starting point, the next arrangements you’ll want to think about are the couple’s chair decorations. It’s best to let your theme and aesthetics, as well as the formality level of your event, guide your choices here. Some couples opt for pairs of matching floral wreathes, while others elect for floral garlands wound around the chairs’ frames. For more formal affairs, you might see the couple’s chairs decorated with draped fabric, tied with bows and festooned with flowers.
Your guest’s gazes will also fall on the cake table, so you want décor that enhances the whole display without overwhelming your elaborately designed, deliciously divine delicacy. You have a wide variety of possibilities, but common choices include placing a ring of blooms around the cake’s base or artfully setting clusters of flower groups on the table. Alternatively, you might want a trail of flowers winding up the side of the cake. If you plan to incorporate any floral displays onto the cake’s surfaces, you’ll need to coordinate with your florist and baker. This is to ensure you get the look you want and select species that aren’t toxic or unfit for human consumption. In a September 2014 blog post, Craftsy listed some edible flowers typically used in cake decoration such as roses, gardenia, pansies and violets.
Designing the Rest of Your Look
Of course, you’re not limited to just centerpieces, couple’s chairs and cake table decorations. Many newlyweds-to-be also spruce up other areas such as cocktail tables, food and buffet stations, lounging areas, restrooms and the getaway car. You might also employ a few additional ideas to integrate your overall look—for example, crafting centerpieces with designs based on your bouquets or altar flowers. Other creative possibilities include mixing in candles, mirrors or other objects to weave stunning visual displays. No matter what you and your beloved decide to do, your reception flowers are yet another opportunity to put your own individualistic stamp on your special day.
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