Hosting a wedding reception means serving refreshments… no exceptions. And it doesn’t matter if you’re planning on digging into cake and champagne or looking forward to a seven course gourmet reception dinner, you have to provide somewhere for guests to sit and enjoy their repast. While it’s entirely possible to wine, dine, and entertain your wedding guests without assigned seating, I’d venture to say that most brides and grooms create seating charts to avoid the possibility of wedding guests bum rushing the good seats as soon as the reception venue doors open.

One can, of course, order a custom seating chart and place cards that wouldn’t look out of place in a calligrapher’s portfolio or create a seating chart and place cards using one’s home computer. These can be spiced up by creatively naming tables with monikers such as elements from the periodic table or cities known for being romantic. Then again, don’t discount the idea of really working your theme into your reception seating chart, like so:

Created by Bellinter House in Ireland, this clever multi-part seating chart features muddy wellies flocked by farm scenes in miniature, complete with grass fields and livestock. Topping it all off were table cards named after various breeds of cow.

I love it! Piggies and wellies wouldn’t have fit into my wedding theme — which was simply “wedding,” if you can call that a theme — but for an upscale farmhouse affair, it would be divine. It’s cute, a little quirky, and potentially inexpensive if you happen to have a large family living in a rainy clime. However, I do believe I would have left the mud out of doors where it belongs, which I’m sure most reception venues would appreciate.

What say you?

(Photo by Jeni Glasgow)

I know, I know. The first thing that comes to mind when thinking ‘balloons’ is Junior’s third birthday party, not a chic wedding reception. But while it’s common to think of balloons as juvenile, don’t discount them just yet.
Done wrong, they’re admittedly ghetto unfabulous. Done right, balloons at wedding receptions can be quite pretty… but there are a few tricks to using them in your wedding decor. First, think of balloons as auxiliary reception decor, not the focal point. Balloons work best as wedding reception decor when they fade into the background. Second, wedding balloon bouquets and other novelty balloon creations? Pass. And third, stick to plain latex balloons. Mylar balloons really are for the kiddies.

For those brides and grooms even considering using balloons in their reception decor, here are the dos and the don’ts:

DO treat balloons as a means of camouflaging boring or ugly reception venue ceilings. A mass of subtly colored helium balloons with dangling strings bobbing just below a very high ceiling can look rather ethereal. A somber space can even become rather radiant with the judicious application of lighting and balloons. Rather not use helium? Balloons can be hung upside down from ribbons strung from wall to wall.

DON’T look to your senior prom for inspiration. I’m sure plenty of us remember the sand-filled, cellophane-wrapped centerpieces that serve no purpose other than using up space on a table and keeping a bunch of balloons from floating into space. These are not, I repeat not, elegant. They’re shiny, and there’s a difference.

DO stick to a simple color palette. Pastels work surprisingly well, possibly because the subdued hues let the balloons become an innocuous splash of color that blends into a larger decor scheme. In other words, think of balloons like filler flowers rather than the main blossom. They shouldn’t be standing out.

DON’T go overboard. If you have balloons floating above, don’t also have balloon columns flanking the doorways and a balloon arch over the cake and balloons tied to tables and a balloon tunnel leading into the ballroom. In fact, don’t have large archways or tunnels at all. Use balloons sparingly at in your reception space for the best results, lest your wedding end up looking like a Sweet 16 in the 80s.

DO go for larger balloons when your balloons will be tethered to a table, as seen in the first pic in this white wedding color scheme post. Bigger balloons, oddly enough, look less like balloons and more decorative, like rice paper lanterns or globe lights (especially when backed by some kind of light source).

And finally DON’T do this:

I’m not even sure what *this* is and why it was done, but just don’t.

Don’t like cake and, by extension, wedding cake? There’s always pie or pastries or chocolates or a sundae bar, candy buffet, and milk and cookies station. Cheese is considered a dessert by some, which means you wouldn’t be going out on a limb to offer a literal cheese cake. Or you could even skip dessert altogether with a sushi cake or a, um, pork pie cake.

That’s right, there be pork in them thar cakes.

“We are always looking to extend and improve our [product range] and hit upon the novel idea of a collection of giant-size celebration pork pies,” said Wilsons partner Andrew Green. “The pork pie wedding cakes, hand-crafted in our own in-house bakery, come in squares of ascending sizes of either seven, nine and eleven inches or five, seven and nine inches. They can even be personalised to include names, date and a suitable message.”

If you and your spouse-to-be absolutely cannot get enough piggy in your diet or your wedding, the Wilsons pork pie cake is one way to really load up on swine!

Remember dyeable shoes for bridesmaids? I can recall taking white ballet flats from somewhere like Payless to a shoe shop to have them dyed to match exactly the color of my junior bridesmaid dress, way back when in the 80s. Now that was a look. Today the rules are more lax when it comes to the feet of the bridesmaid. Some brides want their bridesmaids’ shoes to match (not the dresses, just each other) while others are happy if their bridesmaids’ shoes are appropriate to the event, color and style be damned.

Me? I just wanted my bridesmaids to show up with shoes, which shouldn’t seem at all odd when you consider how much trouble I had getting them to buy their dresses. Shoes? Please just wear them and we’ll call it even.

Personally, I like matching bridesmaids’ shoes and mismatched bridesmaids’ shoes. It all depends on the dresses and the whims of the bride. What you don’t want is one bridesmaid wearing chunky black platform heels and another bridesmaid in bright yellow ballet flats, with a third bridesmaid sporting bridesmaid sneakers that have been bedazzled all the hell. You wouldn’t want that last one regardless, I’m sure.

Coordination is good when it comes to mismatched bridesmaids’ shoes, so let your gals know they should all be on the same page if you’ve decided to let them do their own thing where footwear is concerned. Perhaps go one step further and dictate a kind of shoe, like ‘strappy sandals’ or ‘peep-toe pumps,’ or a color or color family. To conclude, almost anything goes, but a little coordination goes a long way.

What do you think?

Quite some time ago now, I wrote an open letter to wedding gown designers on the subject of why they refused to ever design sleeves. It was a popular article at the time, and it still gets a comment every now and again. It got one the other day that I have decided to make its own post. Here’s what Jennifer had to say:

I’m so glad I found this article!I was googling because I am thinking of making silk wedding dresses next year,(I have school to do right now)and wanted to know what woman are looking for.Almost all the wedding dresses I have looked at ARE strapless,or have plunging necklines,ect.Vintage dresses are great,but most of them are smaller sizes,so that can be a problem for a lot of women.If anyone would like to email me with ideas or anything theyd like to say about wedding dresses,they can at:jennystreasuresforu@gmail.com.I also make handmade jewelry,spin crochet,and knit,so you can check out my website:www.JennysTreasuresForU.etsy.com,if you’d like.If I were to sell wedding dresses on etsy(where you could return most dress if needed),would a seperate shop be better just for the dresses?Thank you!

So, folks, let’s help out a budding wedding gown designer. Let her know what you think about sleeves, butt bows, mermaid lines, crinolines, Etsy as a source for wedding gowns, prices vs quality…anything you have to say about what you love or hate or find confusing about wedding gowns.

It strikes me that it’s been a good long while since we’ve talked in more than the most general terms about thank you notes here at Manolo for the Brides.

Now stop all that groaning! It’s really not as bad as you might think. Even if you haven’t written a thank you note since your mother forced you to send a formal note of thanks to your grandmother for that nice check she sent for your high school graduation, you still have an idea of the basic form. Besides, chances are you really are grateful to a lot of people. Thank you notes are a great way to let them know that.

Still, there are some techniques to make the thank you writing process smoother, simpler, and more rewarding for everyone involved. Here are a few ways to make sure it doesn’t turn into the burden people tend to assume it will be.

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Tweeting at the wedding reception is one thing… tweeting from the altar is another. That’s what Dana Hanna (aka TheSoftwareJedi) did at his wedding to Tracy Page.

Here’s what he wrote after saying his I dos: “Standing at the altar with @TracyPage where just a second ago, she became my wife! Gotta go, time to kiss my bride. #weddingday”

As you can imagine, he caught some flak for calling a time out to text. In response to criticism, Hanna posted a new tweet: “To all the criticizers of my video out there questioning my sanity: You don’t get it. I was having fun at MY wedding! Loosen up, have fun!”

True, and the bride didn’t seem to mind. She even updated her own status when Hanna handed her a second phone after she herself asked for it. So if you’re thinking of updating your Twitter or Facebook accounts in the middle of your wedding ceremony, well, I can’t stop you. Just make sure that your officiant is in on it and that your spouse-to-be is cool with it, lest you find that he or she has changed their Facebook relationship status from ‘Married’ to ‘It’s complicated’.