Tips and Tricks :: Reception Decor

Happy Friday! This afternoon we’re heading out of town for tomorrow’s wedding at Natural Bridge, VA! We hate to be away from the family, especially Sweet Cheeks but at the same time we love a good adventure and a brand new place to work. Before we go, we wanted to get back into a Tips and Tricks post for you. Today we’re talking about your reception decor, and how you can ensure there are gorgeous photos of it all!

With all of our couples, we work together to develop a timeline for each wedding day and how the photography will fit in. We know ahead of time the answers to all of our timeline questions so we can attack the small details efficiently. One of those seemingly small, often overlooked, but super important times of the day is when the reception decor will be photographed. No one usually considers when these photos will take place, but we do. We always recommend that cocktail hour happens outside of the dinner/reception space in it’s own area. This keeps the bulk of the reception decor away from guests, untouched, and ready for photos. Ask your day of coordinator, catering manager or a family member to close the doors to the reception space during cocktail hour, and ask that guests not enter the space until the DJ has announced that it is time to move into the room. If you are not having a cocktail hour, or if you do not have a separate space for guests during cocktail time then you’ll need to ask your florist and coordinator to have the room set up earlier in the day. This allows us to photograph the details and the entire room while it’s perfect, before guests start to sit down, pull out chairs, move centerpieces and take their place cards.

We can’t tell you how many times we’ve gotten to the reception space and found it in pieces. With guests in the seats, red wine stains on the linens, and phones covering the table it doesn’t make for pretty photographs 😉 In these situations we do our best to find the prettiest table, and when guests leave the table to dance or go through the buffet we quickly try to put it back together for a photo. It doesn’t do the same justice as what the table looked like before guests sat down, but it’s something.

You’ve worked hard, invested a lot of time and money into the decor of your wedding. Don’t let it be missed in photos! Make sure to plan for 20 minutes of photo time for the reception decor before guests are allowed to enter. You’ll be glad you did!

Have a great weekend!