POLL: How are you customizing?

Ms.BriarRose

Especially in terms of your reception hall.

How are you or how did you make your reception hall reflect you and FI/DH as a couple?  What did you add/decorate with to make it more visually interesting?

FI has left all this to me, so let's see. 
*I plan on making signs for everything- Bathroom, bar with list of available drinks, Mr. and Mrs. chair signs, Candy Buffet sign (that I may use a chalk board for based off a picture I found), and a gift table sign. 
*I am adding a table of fun activities in the back of the ballroom (tons of room for it, so it will be out of the way).  I am covering the table (both the fun table and the kid's dinner table) in butcher paper so they can color, having legos and barbies, coloring books, and some other fun stuff for them to do.
*I am thinking about doing a "scrapbook" or "wishing well" table in the cocktail area, where guests can write well wishes to us on little pieces of paper, and either stick them in a vase or place on a page in a scrapbook.
*Over either the guestbook area (different from the scrapbook area) or the escort card table, I am going to do a picture collage of FI and I during our relationship.  I haven't decided if it will be poster style (framed) or pinned to various levels of clothesline.
*Near the candy buffet or gift table, I plan on doing a picture collage.  I want to get a wedding photo of married guests (with a description on the bottom of who they are, how they are related to us, and the year they were married) and either do a poster style or find a folding screen and attach them to the folding screen.
*On the candy buffet, we got flameless tea lights and easter grass (in my colors).  We plan on taking some glass vases, placing the easter grass in them, and burying the tealights inside the grass- we found the idea online and the effect is really neat and inexpensive.

I would love to do more, but don't know where else to go.  Anyone want to jump in and add some ideas, and start the creativity ball rolling in my head?

SteveandKris

I am planning to display wedding photos of my parents, his parents and our grandparents.  These are our examples of "perfect" marriages.  It also showcases our most important guests on their most important days. 

(The one of my maternal grandparents is my favorite - its theem outside the church with these "wintage" cars in the background - of course the cars weren't "vintage" then... its also black and white and very classic)

Amerbutt81

This is the thing- our venue is such an accurate portrayal of our personalities already- it's rustic but elegant.   I feel like the ballroom already has so much character that we don't really need to do anything else.

I am going to probably hang some twinkle lights and maybe some vines from the exposed beams, but that's really it. 

CA2PABride2Be

We may put some of our engagement pictures as the table numbers, but that's about it.  I'm thinking if I did a lot of extra stuff for the reception that would get added into the "Married Ladies: I wish" post after I'm married.  I can see all of it as causing me to go over budget and being lots of DIY projects that cause extra stressors for me before the wedding.

[Deleted User]

We're making our guest book.  Which will be old photos of guests year book style.  I'm esp. looking for bad outfits and hair.  I think it will be fun/ funny to look through and then sign.  Plus sometimes I want to write something good, but I need a jolt and I think the pictures will help.  Maybe.

I'm making our menu cards, bathroom basket, wedding pictures of parents, grandparents, etc, guest seating chart, I forget what else at the moment.  

One of my BM is making the invites.  

jillnpaul11609

We did a few different things....

-Pictures of us all over the venue, not only our engagement photos but some of our favorite all-time pics too

-Customized goodie bags, napkins, etc with our stamp...inexpensive and looked cute

-Wedding pictures of all of our family placed on fireplaces throughout the venue. I asked family to scan pictures and email them to me or provide some for us to use. I bought $1 frames at Christmas Tree Shop

-PTP made us signs for all over the venue - everything tied in nicely. One of the coolest items they made was a time chart and venue layout (click on picture below to enlarge)

Most of the personalization we did was inexpensive and people really seemed to like it.

Ms.BriarRose

Thanks for the thoughts girls.

I am not looking to do expensive stuff; most of the stuff I have, someone I know has and will let me borrow (like the room divider), or can get for really cheap.  If your venue is a perfect reflection of who you and FI are, that's awesome- keep it the way it is!  For us, we tried to really save money, which means we got a great deal on some fab food and a nice hall, but it's still just a hall.  We want to add some personal touches- nothing too much, but we don't want it to be boring either.  That and having 9 kids at the wedding that I wouldn't have anywhere else means (to me) providing them something to do as well.

Jill, I love the idea of the timeline!  If we had an older house or something that needed a layout, I would steal that idea as well.  I could even blow that up a little larger (instead of doing tons of little copies) and place that in the cocktail area...

veganbunny

I love all your ideas and I love DIY stuff!  I am planning to do A LOT of DIY as well:

Im going to make our invitations using Photoshop with the background being trees, maybe some little animals, as our wedding is nature and vintage inspired, and maybe a swirl print or something, but we are keeping them really simple. Im going to print them out on recycled paper and mount them in white photo corners on cardstock, and instead of in a regular envelop I would love to wrap them in brown paper with twine...if they can be mailed that way, not sure.

This is kinda DIY, I am arranging hay bails for seats at the ceremony.  Im going to buy vintage blankets to cut and sew into smaller pieces, and also seat cushions, to cover the hay bails with.  I have seen this in a ceremony picture and its awesome!

Im trying to customize our wedding vows / what our officiant is going to say...but we havent wrote anything for them yet.  

We also have to customize our menu, so im going to buy "Great Chefs Cook Vegan" which is a bunch of world renowned chefs making Vegan food, and it has pictures for all the dishes in there.  Im sure that will help us pick a great menu.  I dont want to waste any paper that I dont have to, so i'll write our menu on a chalk board or print it out on a 8X10 to frame somewhere... A great idea would be to paint something on each table in the chalkboard paint, then write on that with colorful chalk markers!  

For reception decor im gathering / making all the decor myself:

If I have time I want to make a digital photo montage of our photos and engagement photos, and bring one of our monitors or tv's to play it at the reception.  I imaging it playing right when people walk in (right before they would enter the reception room).

For guest book I have a couple ideas but the one we like the best is to have a small table with a Polaroid camera - and a sign that tells the guests to take thier photo, and to sign the bottom and write a message if they want.  then they can either put them on a board (in white photo comers), in a book, or throw them in a big metal watering can or something.  i think my guests would have so much fun with that.

For table numbers on the tables, im found these awesome, metal, plant stakes that have a place on top to slide a piece of paper in to label your plant, so im going to write the # on a piece of paper, put it on the metal stake, and stake them in a plant on the table which will work as part of the centerpiece.

For the main centerpieces I am putting them together myself from vases/vessels and interesting containers filled with candles, rocks, moss, plants, flowers, natural sticks etc.  Different formations for each table.  I am having less than 100 guests so this wont be hard, plus I love gardening and decorating.

I also want to hang strands of lights here and there.  Not sure yet if I want big clear bulbs or micro lights.  

Im going to try and find completely round balloons, just to place here and there in bundles of our colors.  

This isn't really DIY but I also bought little animal ornaments made out of grasses and twigs and moss and all nature materials like that, and we are going to place them here and there on the tables.

Yeah I think that's about it...but i'll probably think of more!  Still need an idea for how guests will find their tables, which I would like to combine with their favor as well.