Love is All About "We": Ballroom Sneak Peek

All photos below by The Wiebners unless otherwise noted. We purchased a disc of all unedited images from our wedding day, so some post-processing has been done by me for the purpose of sharing the photos with you. Click on any photo to enlarge.

As the clock was nearing 7:00, the catering manager grabbed Mr. Cupcake, me, and our parents for a sneak peek at the transformed ballroom before the doors opened for our guests. I think I actually gasped when I saw how beautiful it looked. Every little detail had finally fallen into place, and the result was divine!

Here's a little before and after....

BEFORE | The Desmond's ballroom with fairly standard decor (photo from their website):

AFTER | All set up for our reception:

These photos were taken before our guests were seated (obviously!) so the lights were turned up a bit more than they would eventually be... but even so, everything just twinkled and looked so lovely!

The teal chair sashes and napkins really added the perfect pop of color. The chair covers were, fortunately, included with our package since The Desmond owns their own and doesn't have to rent them from an outside vendor, so we splurged for the addition of the sashes. I am so glad we did.

The table settings looked exactly as I had pictured, complete with the silver leaf acrylic chargers I had purchased in bulk from Save on Crafts and the menus I created sitting on top of each charger, folded inside a teal napkin.

The menus were a last-minute project I put together the week before the wedding — I had collected so many pictures of menus I loved, but I had hemmed and hawed for too long over what I was actually going to do... so I finally just sat down and designed them. I used the silhouette monogram that you also saw on our drink menus in my last post, and layered the menus on top of various teal and moss green patterns (the same that I used for our little blank book place cards). I ended up loving the result.

We had three centerpiece designs that alternated from table-to-table. They all incorporated the beautiful cut glass votives that we (mostly my MIL) had been collecting for the last year. It's amazing how one idea found ages ago on a blog ended up shaping our whole reception space! Wade at Blue Moon had created the perfect floral arrangements to accent the cut glass.

{ photo by SIL Cupcake }

{ photo by SIL Cupcake }

One of my favorite extra little touches were all the candles on the mantle of the fireplace.

{ photo by SIL Cupcake }

I also made tented table numbers for each table (we had long ago given up trying to come up with creative names for each table, because there just isn't 18 of anything that relates to us that is interesting enough for table names!). Again I incorporated the various teal and moss green patterns, so each table number looked a little different. You may remember the below pattern from our invitation envelope liners.

Another sweet little pop of color was added by the strawberries on each guest's champagne glass. (They were sweet and yummy, too!)

Our toasting glasses were the vintage coupe glasses I found at a secondhand shop.

By far, the most delicious detail was our amazing cake from Sweet Jazmine's. It looked even more spectacular than I could have imagined (and I couldn't wait to put a knife to that thing and take a giant bite!)

The cake stand we had provided was not quite big enough for the bottom tier of the cake, but that was okay — they sat the cake and its platform right on top of the cake plate, and we still got that added height that we were looking for.

Some scatter crystals that I got on sale from Smith & Hawken were also added to the cake table for a little extra sparkle.

{ photo by SIL Cupcake}

{ photo by SIL Cupcake}

Mr. C and I were mesmerized by the fondant-covered creation. (And about ready to dive right in since we didn't get our hands on many hors d'oeuvres!)

Last, but not least, were the "Just" and "Married" chair signs I had created for my new hubby and me. I had seen lots of "Mr." and "Mrs." chair signs floating around the interwebs, but I thought I'd do something a little different. I used some silver and teal card stock and some glittery letters I picked up at Michaels and voila — chair signs! They were a fun little bonus surprise for anyone who walked behind us that evening :-)


Up next: let's get this reception show on the road!

Previously in our wedding recaps:
The Eve of Our Big Day: The Rehearsal Dinner
Love is All About "We": Getting Gorgeous
Love is All About "We": The Dress!
Love is All About "We": The Guys Get Sexy
Love is All About "We": The First Look
Love is All About "We": Our Entourage
Love is All About "We": Almost Time
Love is All About "We": We Do!
Love is All About "We": Ready for Our Close-Up
Love is All About "We": Cocktails, Anyone?