12 Mar Our Wedding Table Decor: Bright & Bold Summer Tablescape
Six months married and I’m finally getting around to sharing all the details of our wedding table decor. Joe and I tied the knot in August at Pinehurst County Club in Pinehurst, North Carolina after postponing a year due to covid. I wanted our wedding to be bright, colorful and a little untraditional and feel like a celebration for the end of summer. Designing the tablescape was one of my favorite parts of planning our wedding, and I was so proud of the final result. I truly put my heart and soul into it and carefully sourced every detail myself.
Without further ado, here’s everything that went into our wedding table design.
Sage Table Linens
I rented my sage green textured tablecloths from BBJ Linen. They were amazing and truly saved the day. I had reserved a similar linen from another company, but they ended up canceling on me a few days before the wedding. BBJ had the best customer service and were able to quickly ship me these beauties. It all worked out for the best because I ended up liking this one even better than the original.
Photo: Theo Milo Photography
Tabletop Dinnerware Rentals
I ordered my tabletop rentals from CE Rental in Raleigh. They provided the white scalloped charger plates, green water goblets and blush napkins. Pro Tip: If you’re renting only one thing for your wedding, I would recommend splurging on charger plates. They fill out the table so that it looks beautiful when guests arrive to the room and see everything for the first time. If you don’t have a charger, there will be an empty spot there before they bring out the first course.
We used the venue’s wine glasses, champagne flutes and flatware to round out the setting. We also used the house plates for first course, entrée and dessert.
Photo: Theo Milo Photography
Green & Gold Dinner Menus
My friend Jen designed our gorgeous menus. We used the same pale green paper from Soho Paper and custom floral pattern from our invitations. Rather than ink, we had everything gold foil-stamped. The menus — and all the paper items — were extra special because we used my mom’s gorgeous handwritten calligraphy for the script font.
Acrylic Place Cards
I ordered my place cards from an Etsy seller overseas, FranJohnsonHouse. I was a little nervous about them arriving in time, but they came early and in perfect condition. We had three different styles to subtly indicate each guest’s pre-selected entrée. I wanted our system to be chicer than adding a cow or chicken icon to the cards. The clear acrylic rectangles represented the filet mignon, the white hexagons were for the chicken filled with crabmeat and the gold mirrored circles designated shrimp & scallops. The Etsy seller also included stands for the cards.
Photo: Theo Milo Photography
Table Numbers
These were a great affordable Amazon find! The acrylic material and the script style coordinated nicely with the place cards.
Lush Flower Runners and Centerpieces
Since I worked in the event planning world, I knew exactly what varieties of flowers I wanted. I decided on blush, yellow, hot pink and green for my color palette. Since dahlias are in season in August, I wanted them to be the focus. I mixed in some of my other favorite florals: garden roses, lisianthus, ranunculus, veronica, carnations and hydrangea. My florist Hathaway Floral was incredible at bringing everything to life. She totally understood my vision from the color palette to the structure and size of the arrangements. I also loved that she purchased a lot of the flowers locally to get fresh, seasonal blooms.
We did three different styles of arrangements. My head table had a lush runner that spilled off the ends, and some of the rectangular guest tables had a similar style. For the round tables, we did a mix of high and low centerpieces. For the tall centerpieces, I also added flowers at the bottom of the stand to cover the base and make sure it felt luxurious up close. (Pro tip: Place taller arrangements around the edges of the room so you don’t obstruct anyone’s view.) Hathaway Floral provided the stands for the tall arrangements and the compote vases for the low arrangements.
Photo: Theo Milo Photography
Taper Candles & Votives
I had another last-minute curveball when my venue changed their rules a few weeks before my wedding and said I’d no longer be able to use real candles. After a few tears and a ton of research for the best battery`-powered candles, I found these great tapers on Amazon. They flickered like real candles and didn’t melt down throughout the night. I would highly recommend them if your venue doesn’t allow the real thing. Hathaway Floral provided the gold candlestick holders and crystal votive holders.
Light & Airy Chairs
The chairs my venue offered were dark and bulky, so I brought in white chairs to lighten up the space. I rented these from Party Reflections in Raleigh, who also provided beautiful bars, a white-washed wood dance floor and boxwood walls to cover up back-of-house space.
Table Sizes
To give the tables a look that felt super lush but not too crowded, I rented 42” inch tables from Party Reflections. Getting the right size table is so important, and it was absolutely worth the small extra fee.
Photo: Theo Milo Photography
Wedding Table Decor Design Process
I looked through the catalog of every local rental company to put together the best combo of items for our wedding table decor. I started out by pulling photos of plates, glasses, chairs, etc. off the rental websites and putting them into a PowerPoint to create a mock-up of the tables. I would swap things in and out until I had a few looks that I was liking.
Once I had it narrowed down to my favorites, I did a real-life tabletop sample of those items. I would 100% recommend this! CE Rental allowed me to borrow one of each item free of charge, which I picked up from their warehouse. I also had a few tablecloth options shipped to my house for a small fee. Our florist created each centerpiece style to make sure we were on the same page. It was so helpful to see everything together in real life, and it was a lot of fun to play around with different looks. I tested out different colors of taper candles, styles of votives, various charger plates, tablecloths and napkin textures. I even tried out 10+ napkin folds to see which would suit my table best. My type A personality had to know exactly how everything would look to make sure I loved it. You only get one wedding, so you have to make it perfect!
To see more from our wedding weekend, check out my post on our rehearsal dinner decor.
No Comments