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It’s Wednesday, which means it’s time for another Emily Plans a Wedding post! Yippee!

Wayyy back in the cold of January, I told you about some of my favorite flowers, bouquets, and boutonnieres. I also introduced you to our wonderful florist, Blush Floral Design. At the end of the post, I promised to share my ceremony and reception floral and decor inspiration next.

We-e-ell it’s now the end of April, but I’m finally ready to share, so let’s not waste another minute! To recap, I love a lush, garden (but still refined) look in my flowers, and some of my favorite varieties are garden roses, sweet peas, ranunculus, clematis, poppies, camellias, and azaleas. I also love mixing in fruit, like blackberries and crab apples.

For our ceremony, we’re keeping things super simple. Our chapel is absolutely gorgeous, in my opinion, and there’s really no need to dress it up. In fact, we might end up not doing a single thing to it. That decision was in part made by our budget, but mostly, I just don’t think it needs it. If our budget does allow, I would love to do two floral wreaths on the front doors, perhaps like one of these options:

Martha Stewart Weddings and Stacy Able via Style Me Pretty

I would also love to set two small boxwood bushes on the steps of the chapel, just like we did for a Southern Weddings shoot last year. Love the addition of white blooms! We’re looking into the option of renting bushes from a home improvement or garden store to help keep costs down.

Katie Stoops via Southern Weddings (floral by Merriment Events) and via Southern Exposures

After the ceremony, it’s on to cocktail hour! This happy event will take place on a wide porch and the lawn in front of it at our reception site (see this post again for a refresher). Here, we’ll have a few high-top tables decked out in beautiful linen from La Tavola. In fact, the linen we’re using from La Tavola is largely the basis for our color scheme. It’s a little pricy, so we’re using it sparingly, but the color is perfection – so much so, that I’ve been carrying my swatch around with me for the past eight months, so that I can whip it out at a moment’s notice to illustrate a point or judge the color of a potential purchase! Yes, I am slightly ridiculous. Prior to making a decision, I requested several samples, and our linen of choice is the one in the bottom right corner – Tuscany Ocean.

In person, it’s a bit lighter than it looks in this photo – the color is actually somewhere more in between what’s shown here and the top left linen.

I’m not positive, but I think this might be it in action:

Jose Villa via Style Me Pretty and Jonathan Canlas via Snippet & Ink

We’re going to keep things nice and simple at cocktail hour (trusting that guests will be so interested in arriving at the reception site, mingling with each other, and eating delicious food that they won’t notice much else!). We’ll put a few votive candles on each high top, and that’s it! No florals here. We’ll also have our guest book and a limited bar to keep guests interested.

Once cocktail hour is finished, we’ll invite guests into our Sperry tent (yay!). As we discussed before, we’ll be having a mix of different seating options – high-top tables, small rounds, and lounge furniture. Our florist will be putting together lovely small arrangements for the high-tops and round tables, as well as low, longer arrangements for the tables in our lounge areas. Here are a few images that are inspiring me:

From top to bottom: Michael + Anna Costa (flowers by Florette), Poppies & Posies, Virgil Bunao via Southern Weddings, Jodi Miller Photography, Lisa Lefkowitz via Snippet & Ink (flowers by Ariella Chezar), Martha Stewart Weddings

Note that these examples aren’t so much about colors, but more about styles and flowers I enjoy.

One project my family and I have been busy as bees with is collecting silver pieces to house the centerpieces. It’s been a group effort, and I’m happy to say we’re just about finished! (If you’d like the back story on how and where we’re finding these pieces, you can check here, here, and here.) I don’t want the reception to have a vintage look overall, so we’re hunting down clean, stream-lined pieces that are in good shape (i.e. no banged up teapots). Here are a few images that are inspiring me:

Thuss + Farrell, Picotte Weddings, Jessica Claire (flowers by Flowerwild), Steve Steinhardt (flowers by Holly Flora via Inspired By This)

Besides the guest areas, we’ll also have at least one bar and several food tables, and probably a favor and dessert area. Our caterer is exceptionally good at food presentation, so I’m not too worried about adding additional decor to the food tables. I will be creating some signage and other little touches, though (but you knew that already, right?). I’m also considering adding some greenery arrangements to these areas, but I haven’t discussed this yet with my florist, so I’m not sure what the pricing would be. Some inspiration:

Top and right by Adrian Tuazon via 100 Layer Cake, left by Lisa Berry (flowers by Blush Floral Design)

And that’s about that! What do you think? What sorts of flowers will you have at your reception? Are you having any decor at your ceremony?

Up next: Accessories! Shoes, veil, jewelry… fun, fun, fun!

In case you missed a post…
The main characters
Where we’re getting married
I go dress shopping
We choose a photographer
I ponder bridesmaid style
Mini food!
The music
We’re renting a tent!
We discuss bouquets + boutonnieres
We send out our save the dates
I gather hair and makeup inspiration
We talk cake and sweets
I introduce you to our videographer
We create a registry
We buy a tuxedo

emily Written with love by Emily
9 Comments
  1. avatar amanda reply

    Looks fab emily! I have similar taste in flowers and I personally adore greenery as an option to decorate with because it’s less expensive than flowers and sometimes more bang for your buck! You can do a lot with it and it dresses up a space. I cannot wait to see the final product!!

    • avatar Emily reply

      Totally agree! I love greenery for spots where you need a larger arrangement, especially, because it’s so much more cost-effective!

  2. avatar Madi reply

    Loving all of your ideas, Emily! With your combination of high tops, small rounds and lounge, I’m assuming you are not doing assigned seating? We’re still exploring our options with that so I’d love to hear what you’re thinking!

    • avatar Emily reply

      Hi Madi! You are correct – no assigned seating for us! We’re having what I’d term a “strolling small plates” reception. I explained a bit more here: http://iloveswmag.com/2011/11/30/emily-plans-a-wedding-the-food/ Hope that helps!

  3. avatar Tim Duncan reply

    The photos of the floral arrangements are so cute!

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