It’s pretty easy for Brides and grooms to find inspiration for their wedding.  Just turn on any social media and pretty pictures abound.  But there isn’t always practical advice for how you decorate or style your wedding, or why you like a certain photo and how to recreate it.

Here, I have 5 quick and easy tips to improve your wedding table decor.

1. Clear the clutter

Sites like Pinterest and Instagram inundate us with images of pretty things and we want to have it all.  From a design standpoint though, using everything is chaos for the eye.

So, instead of having a menu, a name card, a “thank you for being here” card, a favour, a floral garnish, and a game card at each setting as part of your wedding table decor, pick 2-3 of those.  All of those bits of paper, ribbon or boxes just create a lot of junk at the table!

2. Ask if it belongs

Don’t add things for the sake of adding things (I’m looking at you, scattered-shiny-stones so popular in the 2000s). If your table feels empty, re-evaluate the decor you have.  Perhaps you need a more voluminous centrepiece, or maybe those charger plates you nixed need to be re-considered.

Often we see things like rose petals scattered somewhere and it doesn’t always add to the design.  It just feels like someone felt there needed to be something “more” so rose petals were tossed in.  Nothing against rose petals, this is just an example.

3. Napkins

Just say no to the “creative” folds. Swans, fortune cookies, napkins in glasses in a “pouf”…please stop.  There are many ways to fold napkins and the best are usually the simplest.

4. Dining extras

Here’s a secret: wedding planners/designers hate the coffee cups, sugar packets and salt & pepper shakers that caterers add to the table.  We know this is for convenience, but those pink and blue Sweet-n-Low packets just kill a photo!

We often ask the catering staff keep the coffee cups and saucers off of the tables and pour for the guests that actually want coffee and tea after dinner. We also ask the staff to hold off on adding the sugar packets and salt & pepper shakers/bread baskets/ butter/etc. until after we take Detail photos.  Most venues or catering staff are happy to oblige.  Always ask nicely, and be sure to leave plenty of time in your schedule to accommodate the extra time the staff needs to place out these items just before guests arrive.

5. Balance

By this, we mean visual balance as well as budget balance.  No more room in your budget?  Think about balance and compromise.

You can choose to spend the money on charger plates but remove the individual menus + floral garnish.  Or, skip the charger plates and fold the napkins in a way that takes up more room visually or that adds visual interest (like a fold with pleats as opposed to a plain fold).

 

This is simple perfection from Colin Cowie (photo: Erich Mcvey). Note that there is 1 menu, one glass charger (see-through but still noticeable with its beading) and 1 name card.  The garnish is nice, but not absolutely necessary.

For N&R’s wedding, we had quite a few elements to balance on the table.  We kept the design tight with a limited colour palette of ivory, gold and marsala/pink as well as lining things up neatly and vertically.

The best option when you don’t have charger plates as part of your decor is to keep your napkin folded in a simple square or rectangle fold.  I actually prefer not to have chargers for farm tables to keep the look clean with crisp edges.

And for P&G’s wedding (blog post to come)…hooray! No coffee cups and, therefore, no pink/white/yellow sugar packets on the table.

I hope this helps you navigate all those photos you have on file for decor inspiration.  If you need any help with wedding decor/design, feel free to contact us here.

Evelyn Clark

Evelyn Clark Weddings // Calgary wedding planners