Flower arrangements for your sweetheart table

What kind of flowers should you request for your sweetheart table? If you’re looking for flowers that will make for a big impact at a distance, you want colorful, big, lush blooms, like hydrangeas and blooming roses.

Flickr photo by Hoang

Above, I don’t typically see two arrangements on a sweetheart table, but these are meant to be used as a couple. I like the blooming roses and petals strewn between them.

Flickr photo by Hoang

White orchids on a red tablecloth? Big impact. I love it.

This wedding, which I decorated ages ago, used large blooming lavender roses and Casablanca lilies (my favorite flower!), and white Hawaiian orchids. The Hawaiian and dendrobium orchids don’t have as much visual impact as, say, a cattleya orchid, but I like them for the trailing and dangling effect.

You see what I mean? The dangling orchids here are lovely. This reception, which was held at the Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral in downtown Los Angeles, had a great sweetheart table and backdrop. And all the flower arrangements are simply dripping with orchids.

You can’t see too much of the flowers here — they include pink roses and lilies — but I am including it because its one of my favorite colors and one of my favorite pictures. :)

Candle and lantern guest table centerpieces

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Candles, lanterns, Christmas lights — they all add ambiance to a wedding. Whenever you can, you should incorporate some kind of light with your decorations. So I scoured Flickr for a few ideas on how to get a lighting element onto your guest tables.

Flickr photo by Casual Chin

The arrangement above is your wedding magazine-ready type candle arrangement. It’s got the pretty pastel pink and cream roses, orchids and the silvery lantern with the stars on the windows. I can’t quite tell, but it looks like this venue was possibly on a patio, so maybe an arrangement like this wouldn’t have as much impact as some of the others I found. Continue reading

Tips for setting a beautiful guest table

At a wedding, where does a guest spend the most time? Possible answers include A) the dance floor, B) the (open/cash) bar and C) their tables. There’s not a lot you can do about decorating the dance floor and the only thing you can really decorate a bar with is pretty bottles of alcohol. So you should spend your time and energy decorating the guest tables.

Flickr photo by lisarunolfson

The table above is super fancy. I’m not suggesting that my tips will make your guest tables look like this, but you can take different things from this example and the others I found on Flickr to make your wedding look all the nicer.

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Silvery and chic wedding reception flowers

One of my favorite color combinations for a wedding is purple and silver — to me, the pairing is sexy and classy at the same time. This wedding reception at the Langham Huntington in Pasadena demonstrates the sexy and classy elements very nicely.

Photos by Hoang

Just check out this room. I love the purple lighting on the walls, love the silver table cloths with those silver chairs, and the flowers are so lush and awesome. You want a closeup, I know.

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Wedding cakes from the Bombshell Bakery

Looking for the perfect wedding cake? Trying to find someone to create the perfect cake for your perfect day is just one of the many difficult tasks you’ll face when planning your wedding. If my opinion matters at all, I’d like you to consider Kathleen Gutierrez of The Bombshell Bakery to create your wedding cake.

Kathleen is an old college friend of mine. We worked together at our college newspaper, where I was executive editor and she served as the entertainment editor, so I can personally attest to her work ethic. She’s also a hilarious person with empathy for the stressed-out bride, since she’s been in that particular position for, oh, about a year now.

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Decorate your buffet table with food

I could probably create a whole new category on decorating buffet tables. I really like buffet tables, as a decorator — odd, I know, but the bigger table gives you more canvas to work with, so to speak, and it doesn’t to be as exacting as, say, draping a sweetheart table or a head table. That’s just my opinion, of course. Recently, my undercover wedding attender was at a wedding that made some genius decorating choices at the La Venta Inn in Palos Verdes Estates.

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