Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Wedding Reception: A Personal Touch

Here is the third of my three posts about our wedding (see Something Borrowed to Something Blue and I Do...Added Touches for the other wedding details I've shared). This post will be devoted to the personal touches we incorporated into the wedding reception --held at Orange Hill Restaurant. I highly recommend this location for an evening reception.  It was beautiful in the early evening, and then seeing the sunset was amazing.
As I mentioned, this post will detail the little spin we put on the typical wedding reception traditions of favors, table numbers, and the bouquet toss.

Favors:  I had two favors at my wedding. One was traditional -- heart-shaped chocolates in our wedding colors with a tag that read "Sweet" Hearts.  My girlfriends and I put these together at one of our monthly dinners (thanks ladies!).
The other favor was a bit more labor intensive, but was one of the biggest compliments I got that evening and continue to get from the wedding.  I made a mini photo album personalized for each couple/guest. My husband (fiance at the time) did not want me to undertake this idea at all, but when I finally figured out the concept, I actually had a lot of fun creating each one.  I bought teal paper (our wedding color) and folded it to be able to create the book.  I then cut a heart out of the front using scrapbooking supplies and typed up the couple/person's name to show in the center. I used a white ribbon to hold all the pages together.
The inside was the true detail.  The first page was the same for everyone.  It read (in better font of course), 
You have helped build the memories of our Past 
And shared with us the moments of our Present... 
The next 3 pages each had a photo that was a personal memory I or my fiance had with that couple/guest.  Each page also had a short label to describe the photo.  To do this, I had to scan a lot of old photos and the ordered the wallet size prints from Costco.  This way all I had to do was type/print the label and back it, cut out the photo, and glue both to the page. I tried to make sure each photo was a different memory from the years we had known our guests.  The final page of the mini album read,
We look forward to creating many more memories with you in our Future.
Mr. and Mrs. Casto
July 15, 2007
If you are crazy like me and would like to take on this project, feel free to email me and I will give you the dimensions, etc.  These took me a while to figure out, and it would save you lots of time. I think I ended up making 75 of these!!  But...we were only engaged for 5 and half months, so I only had a short time to get all of this done.  This just shows that it can be done!

Table Numbers: I have to admit, we stole this idea from our friend Tom's wedding up in Oregon.  We loved it so much, we decided to add this funny touch to our wedding. After figuring out who would be sitting at each table, Tom and I took a fun photo that represented the guests at that table in some way and held the table number during the photo.  I backed each of these in teal to be placed against the flower arrangement at each table.  Most tried to play up the fun personalities of our guests, but others were more heartfelt (sorry..none of those are pictured here!)
This was super fun and didn't take much time at all.  To be perfectly honest, my maid of honor snapped these 2 hours before the rehearsal dinner, we uploaded them to one-hour photo, picked them up after the rehearsal, and I backed them that night before going to sleep!!

Bouquet Toss:
The single-lady bouquet toss is yet another tradition I hate at weddings. It is too cheesy for me, and I could not bring myself to participate in this silly tradition. I decided to present my bouquet to 3 couples Tom and I hoped to emulate in our own marriage.  My florist had included a toss bouquet in my floral package, but when I told her my idea, she was happy to make 3 small individual "toss" bouquets instead.  When it came to this part of the reception, I simply explained what we were doing instead of a bouquet toss.  I then recognized each couple and what aspects of their marriage we hoped to emulate as my husband presented them with the bouquet. This was a neat way to highlight the true meaning of marriage.
That's it for my wedding posts. It was a beautiful day/evening, and the start of an amazing marriage.  Thanks to all those that participated in this day and to those who we've met since who add so much to our lives.  Please comment and let me know your thoughts or your fun wedding details!


*All formal photos taken by Joel Eckman Maus of Studio EMP, Inc. Table number photos taken by my maid of honor.


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