Task 4 Continued - Decoration - Where to buy

You have picked your theme, had a good look on Pinterest for inspiration and ideas and you have planned the layout of your venue.

Now for the FUN bit..... SHOPPING 

I had such a great time exploring both the high street and the internet looking for pieces that would make my decoration unique and personal to me. I found pieces in shops I would never expect and have probably never even thought about shopping in. 

I am now the proud owner of a glue gun, a button pot, Spray mount and endless amounts of ribbon, craft stamps and fabric.

It has been exciting seeing it all come together and I am very excited to see the end result.

I wanted to buy everything cheaper than it would cost to hire. I also wanted to buy pieces that I could get creative with to give my decoration that personal feel. 

Buying also gives you the opportunity for people to take bits home with them or for you to re-sell or re-use.

Here are a few pieces that I found whilst on my travels that I thought would be suitable for a good mix of wedding themes.

These Metal Pitchers make lovely centrepieces or can be used to decorate feature areas like fireplaces.
To personalise them add ribbon to the handles or a transfer on the front and fill with flowers.
available from DiscountUK Small £1.99 Large £3.99

The 3 above pictures are all from B&M. B&M always seem to hold bulk quantities so fantastic if you have lots of tables to decorate. Again all can be personalised and made to suit your chosen theme. The hollow heart would look lovely hanging from beams.




Oversized glasses have been a very popular choice over recent years. I came across these ones in The Range in Stevenage. They were a nice sturdy quality and would look lovely with various different things in them. Autumn leaves for a Fall wedding or mini baubels for a Christmas Wedding.  

   





Ikea is a fantastic place to pick up bulk products at very affordable prices with small vases from 65p and larger vases from £1. I also love the big paper decorations. They create a fun focus. 

Vase £1

I found these tin Beer coolers in 'The Works' £7.99
Fantastic for inside and outside use - welcome drinks - just fill with ice and beers :)

All you need is love - Asda £7 Great for decorating a card / cake table.












This was one of my Favourite finds from Wellpersonalised £12. They have a lovely affordable selection of products. Take a look at their fingerprint guestbook. 



Don't forget to look on Ebay and Amazon.
I managed to buy my cotton chair covers on ebay for less than the hire cost and I am currently searching for some fabric to sew my own napkins. I will keep you posted!!


And remember you can always get creative and personalise items to make them your own.

Have fun CREATING!! The Wedding Assistant x

Task 4 - Theme and Decoration Ideas - planing your layout

If you are anything like me as soon as you have selected your venue your mind will go into a creative whirlwind and you will become full of ideas on how to make your empty hall into your dream venue.

In this blog post I am going to share my shopping secrets, take a look at a few different themes and show you how fun and easy it is to DIY.

So Lets start with the Theme 
There are a few things that you need to consider to help you decide on a theme including, what your venue looks like, what season you are getting married in, and the colour scheme you are looking to use.
You may find that your venue dictates your theme fully and already gives you a strong back drop.






















Here's our venue. We were very lucky as we wanted a rustic / vintage style wedding with a colour scheme of Burgundy and Gold. We could not believe our luck when we turned up and saw all off the rustic beams and burgundy finishings.

There are lots of different themes to choose from and once you have picked your theme then that's where the fun starts...

Rustic / vintage / modern / Alice in Wonderland / casino / London / Paris / Las Vegas / music / comic book / Christmas / Easter / Halloween / Spring / Autumn / rainbow / nautical / beach / summer fete / garden party / travel / colour / seaside / art deco / books, library / film, cinema / fairytale /  the list goes on. 


So Where do you start?
We went to the venue with a list of questions. As we were planning a full DIY wedding we had to make sure we were 100% clear of what we were allowed to do. We made sure we made lots of notes to refer back to.
Our questions and notes included;
What is included in the price of the venue?
Are there tables and chairs that can be used?
Chair / table dimensions / Quantities 
access times / hall availability
hall dimensions. 
Power points / music systems / fire escapes
decorative areas (fire places)
Facilities available
Outside space
car parking 

Make sure you take the time to fully look around the venue and take lots of photos. Take photo's from each angle of the venue and any features. For example at the end of our hall there is a nice wooden fire place and above that there are two hooks - so we will be making the most out of these by decorating the fire place with jugs full of flowers and hanging banners or bunting off of the hooks.

Once you have all of your measurements you can sit down and work out a hall plan. The first thing to consider is the size of the hall and how many people you want to have seated.
Our hall is on the smaller side and we are going to have 100 people seated for the meal. I found the diagram below really useful on helping to decide the style of tables to use and the final lay out.   

A good tip that my mum gave me was to draw out everything to scale onto graph paper so you can make sure everything will all fit exactly how you want. 

Remember to work out where you would like other key areas - Welcome Drinks / DJ / Bar / Cake table / card table..

We decided to go for a top table running in front of the feature fireplace followed by two long rows. This allows us to fit in the required number of guests with plenty of room for everyone to walk around with ease. We have a corner for the DJ and a large alcove for the bar.

I really like the set up of this hall. I think long tables work really well. Pinterest is fab when creating inspiration for different layouts and set ups.

I also like the mixture of long and round tables that are used in the picture on the right. All pictures show strong ways to make the most of your space.

As we have a smaller sized hall we want to make the most of the outside space. We are lucky enough to have a large lawn area surrounding the venue. We have decided to have either a marquee or laced gazebos depending on the weather and create both a seating area made from hay stacks and a lawn games area for the children to play. This will allow us to create a larger feeling venue and really maximise all of the space. 

Remember to look at your venue as a whole and not just a single room.

Once you have a list of ideas of the theme and colours that you would like to go for and you have set the layout of the hall you can then start to get Creative.

You will need to research the following areas

Centre pieces

Tables / table linen 

Chairs / Chair linen

Extra table decorations (wine coolers / jugs)

Place settings

Favours 

Feature area decorations (fireplaces / hooks / beams)

Cake stand 

cake knife

sashes / bows / swags

signs  

candles / lighting (inside and out)

Outside decoration

I know I keep on saying it but to help me generate ideas and channel my creativity I spent a lot of time on Pinterest and google images. You can search for anything on there and so much inspiration and ideas come up that it really helps you to perfect exactly what you want.

Popular searches that I used 

Rustic wedding 

Barn wedding 

Vintage centre pieces 

Long table decoration 

Burgundy Wedding 

Village hall wedding decoration 

Fireplace displays for weddings

Wedding signs 

outside wedding ideas 

I created a board displaying my likes so that I could collate them in one place. From this I then drew out table plans and decoration ideas to visualise exactly how everything would look.

From this you can then Write your Shopping list 

In my next post I will show you my purchases and the best places to pick up key items. This part has been such a fantastic experience and I wish I could keep doing it. I have made surprise purchases from shops that I would not of even planned to go in and sourced and researched items from the internet. I have made things and love the DIY touches that I have added. I cant wait to share them with you all.

If you have found a real gem then please share your findings below. 

And don't forget to hit the follow button :) 

Have a nice day 

The Wedding Assistant