Adding Luxury Ideas To Your Wedding Design - Part I of 3

The following are TIPS and Ideas on design that can move your wedding and reception from a nuts and bolts, mechanized, ho-hum experience into a celebration reflecting your…

Standards for elegance
Electrifying personalities
Joyful, LUXURY surprises
Stylish Additions
Out of the box ideas
photo by DUPhotography.com
                                                                                                 
Luxury statements can be placed throughout the entire wedding or focused on one area of the wedding day celebrations. We will cover methods in this three-part-series. Join Judith Rivers-Moore, The Wedding Coach on WeddingLinks.co  and add your ideas to to this topic - here on the WeddingLinksBlog.

                                         Remember, you are the royal couple on your wedding day!
#1. Meeting & Greeting the Guest With Luxury: Everything from your personal website, save the date card, list of local hotels, maps to your event sites in the invitation to ample parking and good signage on where to go or adding transportation will lead to less-frazzled guests.

An Entry Host to direct the reception guests and  a water or ice tea service are especially appreciated on hot days. Depending on the venue, we see couples setting up a cocktail or wine bar ahead of the ceremony with music favorites being played. This provides an added luxury to greeting the guests. We also see couples providing a water service or bottled water just after the ceremony on hot days.

Making certain seniors and senior guests have someone assigned to pick them up and deliver adds to their luxury and welcome. Finding one's way in a region can be difficult. Very formal weddings often have a reception line. More casual methods are for the couple to go to each reception table and greet guests.

#2. Flowers & Decor & Lighting Enrich  Your Setting. Brides love garden settings with beautiful backdrops and environmental views. The ceremony aisle being spread with rose petals is a royal carpet treatment and focal point for the nuptials. Even a simple room may be enhanced with flowers on the aisle.

#3. Luxurious Ideas For Wedding Invitations: Invitations set the tone of the wedding. Very high style custom-made papers that include eco-friendly types with beautiful, hand–written calligraphy are available and add a special touch on wedding invitations. The gold leaf border (or a copper wax seal) might be enough trim. Create a personal monogram or watermark on the paper with your initials. The style chosen can be used as a unifying element for your invites, reply card, menu card, envelopes and ceremony programs. Conveying your theme or the wedding colors on all the paper products including your Thank You Notes will add that touch of luxury. Whatever design you choose, make it's eye-catching. Be sure to indicate if your wedding celebration is a black tie formal affair, or a themed wedding with costumes etc. and/or is cocktails and dinner following and/or any uniqueness. There are specialty services to assist with this and some brides have the invites addressed and mailed by the services with special stamps or hand canceling. When weddings are in major cities, the added touch of messenger delivery is a possibility.

We have seen:
Fabric boxes with the invitation set inside to be an outstanding delivery through mail or messenger. These may also be placed on the tables at the reception as an added display with your centerpieces.

Gold Rose Boxes with flowers and invitations being delivered at the same time.

Wine or champagne bottles sent by messenger with the invitation affixed as a label or attached in the envelope to the neck. Additional bottles can be your wedding favor - set on the tables for the guests to take home.

Boxes of candy or chocolates mailed with the invitation inside - shipped to guests.

                                                  Your invitation to a sweet affair.

Beach Wedding Invitations with grains of sand or sea shells (not a real starfish)

Beautiful Invitations with initialed SEALS on the envelopes.

We will cover venues in the next blog, please give us you input.

Adding Luxury Ideas To Your Wedding Reception - Part 2 of 3

Photos by Dennis Urbiztondo - Written by Judith Rivers-Moore

A Luxurious Wedding & Reception Venue Can Be Chosen and Created

Ideas for a luxurious wedding and reception venue appear with photos in magazines and websites. Often these photos do not show the negative areas of a location and that is why you personally review the location prior to booking it. Some of the concerns in seeking the elegant location have a great deal to do with: The entry to a wedding site and/or views of parked cars from the gardens/grounds can be very distracting. The flow and access of the room to where caterers/staff enter and placing your head table away from EXIT signs and bright/light door entries.


The event room's ceiling is key to visuals. Room appearance is directly affected by the condition of flooring and any equipment in the room. The condition of chairs and linens that come with the event site. Your use of full-length tablecloths (or pooling linens) and overlay cloths of unique fabrics adds a luxury statement.


You tables set with complete and matching china, crystal or matching glassware as your table dinner service, the floral centerpieces and setting the table with specific folds to napkins for your personal printed dinner menu, and unique favors can all enhance the table appearance. While less is more was the old statement, we have entered a "new look of more". Creating a color theme of 2 to 4 colors will enrich your statment. Working with the new table fabrics can be so much fun.

Lighting with mood lights, display lighting and music lightshows all work toward a more elegant event. The use of candles and votives enrich the romance.


Luxury receptions will play softer music over the dinner hours so that people can talk. Smaller tables that seat six or eight instead of ten will enhance the visiting. Details, like the box of tissues in a bathroom to lighting over the bride and groom or dance floor, bring a reception room into focus. We are seeing delightful floral displays and unique color contrast swags added to the chair covers and canopies places over table arrangements, both inside and outside for shade and visual affects.


Tenting a site can be absolutly necessary with weather issues. But it can also be a very luxurious tent. Tents come with air conditioning, heating, sound systems and flooring. Amazing, and often very costly. Some locations with weather concerns often have their own tents for inclement day use.

Adding a Luxury Space -- Separate Areas...
Entry rooms sectioned off by plants and unique screening or actual rooms with high tables are set for cocktails and jazz or specific music is played for a stand-up area prior to dinner being served. As the couple arrives, they bring everyone into the main room. some form a reception greeting line.

We find larger event rooms incorporating a furnished area (couches, chairs, lamps & table conversation areas) placed near the bar and away from the music can provide an enjoyable space.


Adding a small Arabian style tent to an outdoor environment is pure luxury statement. Use it for pre-wedding cocktails or later with wine and cheese serving….posh with pillows, music and unique décor.

Wedding Planning Ideas For Table Linens & Party Rentals For Your Wedding Reception

You can quickly upgrade the look and feel of your reception with use of quality table linens. 

The following are tips regarding their use for specific tables that look best when dressed and completed first for the wedding and reception areas:

                                               Unique dessert table with twinkle lights.
These Are Important To the Entry For Your Guests.  The Ceremony, the guest book and a gift table. (some people still insist on bringing presents to the wedding). In the reception room, your cake/dessert table should be clothed, skirted and ready prior to the cake delivery time.

                                                           Photo by DUPhotography.com

1. The Cake Table. Full length round or square cloth makes a huge difference on the presentation of this very important centerpiece to the reception. Visually we see this table from many parts of the room. When the legs of a table show, it distracts from the cake's beauty. White works well, but if you have bright colors on the cake, you can select one of the shades for the cloth you use.

                                                          Photo by DUPhotography.com

2. The Head Table. So often we see feet legs and purses under the table if it is not clothed to the floor. Consider the view and rent the linens if you do not own them.
Understand the hotels and restaurants will have clothed these and you may request - clearly - ahead of time - your preferences on length.

3. The Banquet Tables. We are seeing some very exciting linens and table settings. The ornamental sheer cloths over a solid shade are awesome. Some of these fabrics have metalic threads and vibrant colors. The chair covers and bow ornaments add to the elegance. Here again the full length cloths enrich the look of your wedding. Outdoor events have a wind factor for blowing the lighter fabrics off....so consider this if you are having an outdoor reception.   Check out the Pinterest Boards for some great ideas.

                                                 All white weddings will always be in style.

4. Paper & Plastic Cloths. We see these used for more casual outdoor celebrations, but not that often for a wedding reception. Weight them down on the top to make it easier to keep them on.

5. Use of Color. Your reception colors do not have to match exactly the colors of your ceremony flowers. The look of your reception room can be completely opposite of your ceremony area. Understand your ceremony flower colors may not move on into the reception room as well, but flowers usually transition. We see the use of cloth color changes from table to table to add interest to a reception room. All white is still in style. Black linens tend to be more for an evening affair. Evening is also where the metalic sheer overlays shine.

 You will find many Linen and Party Rental Companies on WeddingLinks.com and WeddingLinks.co our mobile friendly website.