By Georgina Clatworthy

Your reception tables are the centerpieces to your entire wedding scheme and are the main focus of your wedding design and decorations.  Choosing wedding table decorations can present you with many different choices and it can be easy to get carried away with mountains of flowers, crystals and linens!

Here are a few tips and ideas to help you sort out what is good for you and what isn’t when it comes to your table decorations:

Firstly you need to keep your wedding style and/pr theme in mind.  Do you want to keep the decorations looking minimal, contemporary or perhaps more traditional?  You may want to go for a simple and uncluttered look or you may want to add everything you can find to your reception tables.

Your first decorations will be your table linens.  Usually you will have a large table cloth and then a second cloth, perhaps in a different color or pattern which is slightly smaller than the first and which will lay over the top.  Check out your tables at your reception venue, if they are particularly nice you may want to forgo the table cloths altogether.

Your venue or your caterers will usually supply the linens for you which will also include napkins and perhaps table mats.  You need to see these for yourself to know if they are what you like and what you want.  They also need to come in your chosen wedding colors.  If they cannot provide table linens to your liking or in your colors then you may have to hire them in from elsewhere.  Look for package deals which may also include coordinating chair covers as well.

Once you have sorted out your table linens you will then need to turn your attention to your centerpieces.  These as the name suggests go in the center of your tables and provide the main focal point.  Traditionally they are floral arrangements but in recent times brides have used candles, small trees and even goldfish as their centerpieces.  Again your wedding style and theme will be the deciding factor here and your budget as putting together lots of centerpieces can be costly.

For many brides table linens, centerpieces and place settings are more than sufficient wedding table decorations, but if you wanted to add more then here are some other finishing touches to consider:

• Table crystals – these are small crystals which you scatter around the table. They come in several sizes, a host of different colors and are fairly inexpensive to buy. What you do with them after the wedding though is another question!
• Table confetti – a cheaper alternative to crystals, these are foil punched shapes which come in a wide range of shapes, sizes and colors. Wedding themed confetti includes doves, bells, words, hearts and champagne bottles.
• Flower petals – these can be real, dried or silk and come in a range of popular wedding colors such as pink, lilac, blue etc. They look very pretty with floral arrangements and of course can be used for other elements of your day such as scattering down the aisle, over the wedding cake and given out as confetti to your guests to throw.
• Disposable cameras – ok perhaps not decorations as such , but they do provide a decorative element. These are perhaps too expensive to purchase one per guest so purchase one between three and ask them to take pictures throughout the reception and hand the camera in to the best man afterwards. They are a great way of getting some ‘as it happened’ shots for your wedding album.
• Candles – ask your venue if you can have lit candles first. Votives and tea lights in attractive look lovely nestled around your centerpieces and if you use table crystals they can really make them sparkle with the flame light.