Top Tips - Visualise your Venue

The venue for your reception is one of the most important decisions that you will have to make as you plan for your wedding.

It can be very difficult to visualise the room as it will look 'on the day' because it will almost certainly be empty when you view it.

If the room is empty or just has a few haphazardly placed tables and chairs it is very easy to get a false impression. This makes it very difficult to visualise the space required for a table and ten chairs let alone the space required for ten tables!

Before you think about how you would like your tables to look, ask your wedding venue when they are next dressing the room for a wedding and ask if you can go and see it. This will allow you to see how beautiful the room will look and how much space you have.

You will already have a colour in mind for the tables normally the colour of the bridesmaids dresses. The best way to get you colour to stand out is by having plain white or ivory table cloths and then dotting your colour through.

You can do this in a number of ways:

• Using a organza runner of your chosen colour to drape over the centre of the table, this works well with both square and round table.
• If you are having favours - try attaching a bow, butterfly or feather to them in your chosen colour.
• Try folding your napkins flat with either a plain band of organza ribbon stretched over them or a bow tied onto the front of them. If you have a butterfly theme then it may be nice to put a little butterfly onto the ladies napkins.
• Your place cards will have a colour on them; even though they are small the colour will still be seen because you will have maybe 60 – 100 of them.
• Petals are always a lovely touch for the table especially if roses are a theme that runs through your wedding.
• Little 'dew drops' can be sprinkled onto the tables; they come in a variety of colours and really sparkle beautifully.

Don’t be tempted to put too much onto your tables - remember that you will have glasses, crockery, cutlery before you have even started. You then will have maybe two bottles of wine, the name or number of your table and perhaps tureens of vegetables depending on your menu. Your very large table soon becomes full so less is more.