Pedestals, Carpets and Chairs -how much is too much...

When we first started looking at decorations for our rose garden venue I had so many ideas of what we could do. But then FH asked a valid question ... are you going overboard? 

Ceremony decoration ideas

Credits: 

Top left: Wedding Planning 101.com; Bottom left: Wedding Ideas Forum ; Top middle: Wedding decorations; Bottom middle: Wedding Decorations; 2nd to right Top: Wedding Decorations; Top Right: Polka Dot Bride; 2nd to Right Bottom: Polka Dot Bride

Credit to Outdoor Wedding Design

I also decided that I hated the red carpet, it looks too movie like or premierish, if there is such a word as shown in the photo on the left. I think it contrasts to much with the green lawn. I quite like the white carpet as it tends to blend in with the surroundings more. Love it! Definitely adding it to my list of wants. I contacted multiple ceremony decorators and asked for the basic ceremony pricing of details such as pedestals, plinths, white carpet, flowers, a rose petal aisle, folding chairs, easel, arch, etc. The prices varied from $500 to close to $1000 for set up, pack up and equipment.

Credit to Secret Garden Weddings

Some of my favourite companies were:

• Secret Garden Decorations: Awesome company with good pricing, very high on my list of places, and they would also do a fake rose petal aisle for me and clean it up afterwards as we aren't allowed real rose petals in the rose garden as it is a risk to the roses already growing there.
• Events by Nadia: Fantastic company, competively priced and willing to work out realisitc packages with you. The orginial idea for my ceremony came off their web page and I loved a lot of their equipment.
  



Credit to Outdoor Wedding Designs

• Outdoor Wedding Designs: I fell in love with this company as their work was very simplistic but couldn't justify the extra fee for the botanic gardens which they charged whereas other companies did not charge this. Everything else was reasonably priced though which was great.

 

But after many an email to these three companies, I eventually had to send them one last email and say that I wasn't going to be able to use them as I'd booked Jess in from Angelic Events and Design as it made sense for one team to do the ceremony, reception and wedding planning, instead of having multiple suppliers doing different parts of the wedding. 

Angelic Event's Mirrored Plinths

Jess has been absolutely fantastic with helping to design the ceremony, she has sent me photos of items via email and we have decided to have to pedestals with medium flower arrangements. We weren't orginally going to have fresh flowers but we've been encouraged to have them as they can then be reused at the reception for an entrance or something similar.  The photo of the mirrored plinths is similar to what we will be having but they will be white with fresh flowers on them. 

We are going to keep the ceremony simple with 12 folding chairs and my pomander balls hanging off the aisle chairs, with a white carpet and the x 2 plinths with flower arrangements at the front. And an easel which will have My and FH's names on it, so it identifies our wedding to our guests so they know they're in the right place. I'm also going to have an extra table which will hold things to make it nice for our guests like:

• Fans (some relief from the hopeful heat)
• Parasols (I'm hoping that we are going to have some nice weather, and due to where we want to have the ceremony, there is not much shade.
• Order of Service Programs with a map to get to the venue and stops on the way for icecreams and alcohol for the 2 hour time period while we are having our photos taken



Credit to Natasha Hill

• Bottled Water (just cause it's nice to have something to sip on

 

Our Celebrant, Natasha Hill has supplied us with a table and chairs as part of her package which makes our ceremony equipment hire just a smidgen cheaper and it also means that we may possibly be able to get away with having 14 chairs instead of only 12 (botanic garden rules). Her table and decorations are photo on the right and she will decorate according to you colour scheme.

So that's pretty much my plan for the ceremony decorations but I'm also thinking about having a papel picado strung across the table with the fans, parasols, and water on it, with something written on it like love... or something like that. I had a photo bookmarked somewhere of one that I liked, so I'll search for it now and finish of this blog with it....  

I can't exactly find the one I was looking for but I did find some other images of how I pretty much want our ceremony setup to look like, and also found a very nice papel picado for an idea to go across my bits and pieces table. 

My pretty much ideal ceremony set up and it's in the Rose Garden too!!

Credits:

First four photos - left to middle: Maggie May flowers; Photo on Right: Style Me Pretty