We had tables of 6, 7 and 8's which I was a bit worried about at the beginning for people having to shout across the table at each other. It was all OK in the end apart from one table of 5 which did look very empty.
So let's start with the centre and move out.
We hired cut glass fruit bowls / cake stands and filled them with flowers. Surrounding these, placed on the table we used vintage sherry glasses to hold single flowers and tea lights.
We hired the vintage champagne saucers for the wedding reception drinks with canapes and then had them washed and placed on the table for the speeches.
The paper flower napkins I made to match the flower pom poms (all 80 of them!) I adapted the Martha Stewart recipe for these by making the shape of the tissue paper much squarer (about 5 x 5 inches) and using 10 sheets of paper. My top tip for these is not to buy metallic paper like I did as the thickness makes it looked like a screwed up ball of paper. The thinner the tissue the fluffier the finish. I used florist wire to make the napkin ring, which was easy for the hotel staff to bend round the napkins.
As our cheesecake was real cheese, from the brilliant House of Cheese no less, we opted for jams and chutneys as the wedding favors. I wanted to source a local supplier as the wedding breakfast was all locally grown and sourced and Norfolk has such a bounty on offer. Sarah at Essence Foods very kindly let me design the labels and sent me a proof to sign off before ordering. We had amazing Apple Chutney with walnut, Bloody Mary relish, Strawberry and Elderflower jam, Norfolk Pickle and Blackberry jam. Everyone took as many as they could home with them and all said they didn't last for very long as they were eaten up so quickly.
We did have a number of guests sitting together who didn't know each other that well, so as an ice breaker we decided to have a pub quiz, focusing on aspects of our lives. We kept it to 5 sections and asked everyone to put in £1 per head for the winning pot which we also added £50 to, to keep it competitive.
It was lots of fun and the best thing was that we got to keep the answer sheets in our memory box, which is very funny and some of which cannot be repeated on here!
Finally we bought some Gisela Graham photo stands with lovely jewelled details to hold the table names. Each table was named after a fancy dress theme we have attended, so there were Porn stars, Pop stars, Euro Trash, Top Gun and Masquerade to name a few.
All of our stationery on the day was designed by our dear friend and talented designer Patrick.
Look out for my table seating plan in the future.........x
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