Centrepieces That Block
Anything between roughly eye level when seated and standing height puts a wall between people at the same table. Arrangements should sit low, or lift clear above the sight line, and never in between.
Reception
Reception Styling
Guests spend five or six hours in the reception. It has to hold up to that, not just to the first photograph taken when the doors open. Reception styling is where a room is either transformed or simply decorated.
Reception styling is quoted on scope, or included in full wedding styling from $5,000.
The Room as One Decision
Rooms fail when they are styled in pieces.
The most common reason a reception looks not quite right is that each element was chosen well on its own. The linen was chosen, then the centrepieces, then the chairs, then the signage, each defensible and none of them talking to each other. The result is a room that reads as a collection rather than a decision.
Styling a reception properly means fixing a small vocabulary early and holding it: a limited palette, one or two materials that repeat, a consistent height language across the tables, and lighting that ties it together. Restraint here is what reads as expensive.
- The entry
- The first thirty seconds set the expectation for the night. Often the highest return per dollar in the whole room, because it is where guests stop, look and photograph before they have got used to the space.
- The bridal table
- In the sight line of the room for the entire reception and in more photographs than any other surface. It carries a different level of detail to the guest tables, and it needs to be lit properly, because a bridal table in shadow is a genuinely common and completely avoidable problem.
- Guest tables
- Consistency over complexity. Height controlled so people can see and talk across the table, a repeated language rather than variation for its own sake, and genuinely enough clear surface for the meal, the glassware and a phone.
- Cake and stage
- Both are moments the room turns to look at. Both are frequently left against whatever wall was free. Positioning them deliberately, and lighting them, is what makes those moments photograph.
- Ceiling and walls
- Draping, suspended installations and lighting are what transform a room rather than decorate it. They are also the elements most constrained by venue rules, so what is permitted is confirmed before anything is designed.
Where Receptions Go Wrong
Four failures Shabz designs against.
Unlit Focal Points
A bridal table, cake or backdrop that is beautifully styled and sitting in shadow will not photograph. Lighting gets planned as part of the styling rather than left to whatever the venue rig happens to do.
Tables With No Clear Surface
Once the plates, glassware, menus and favours land, an over styled table has nowhere for the meal to go. Guests end up moving your styling to the floor.
A Room Styled in Pieces
Elements chosen individually rather than to one direction. It is the difference between a room that looks decorated and one that looks designed, and guests feel it without being able to name it.
Common Questions
Typically four to eight hours depending on the scale, the guest count and whether there is any ceiling or rigged installation. The install window the venue gives you is one of the biggest factors in what is realistically possible, so it is confirmed with venue operations before the styling is designed.
Yes. A room turnaround between ceremony and reception is a specific operation with its own timing, crew requirement and cost, and it needs to be built into the run sheet rather than assumed. It is very doable when it is planned.
Venue packages usually include basic linen and a simple centrepiece, which is a genuine head start. Shabz will look at what is already included and style around it rather than have you pay twice for the same items.
Where the venue permits it. Suspended and rigged work depends entirely on the building, its rigging points and its insurance requirements, so what is allowed is confirmed with venue operations before anything is quoted.
Shabz returns for the pack down and the hire goes back to the suppliers it came from. Nothing is left for your family to load into cars at the end of the night.
Let's Create Something Beautiful
Tell Shabz about your event and a considered response follows within 24 to 48 hours.
Prefer to talk it through?
02 9191 7381