Wedding Reception Planning Guide

Written By Penny Warner.

Hosting a Do-It-Yourself Wedding reception is more personalized and a piece of cake when you add the right party details. You can hold it anywhere such as your home or backyard, a local community center, church meeting room or banquet hall, country club, school auditorium, museum, restaurant, or winery. Here are some tips for planning the perfect wedding reception, shower, or rehearsal dinner.

Invitations

• Send your guests formal printed invitations. Or add a personal touch by making your own computer-generated invitations using a photo of the bride and groom set against a romantic background. Write the details in silver or gold ink or use a fancy computer font.
• If you send your invitations within padded envelopes, you might include tiny wedding rings, dove confetti, silk flowers, satin pillows, or tulle bags filled with rice or Jordan Almonds, all tied with delicate white ribbon. And don’t forget to check with the post office for stamps with a romantic theme. 

Decorations

• Design the reception around a theme based on the couple, such as a luau for their tropical honeymoon destination, a sports arena for their favorite team, or a gala art gallery for their special interests.
• Or make romance your theme. Consider renting a large tent, then set up a giant archway of balloons to greet the bride and groom and guests. Fill the area with white or silver balloons, or balloons in the bride’s colors. Hang “Just Married” banners on the walls and over the doorways.
• Cover the tables with white, silver, or lace tablecloths, set with wedding-theme paper products and plastic champagne flutes. Add floating candles or personalized votives to each table, along with silk flower bouquets in decorative baskets. Drape the table with lighted or floral garlands. Tie pew bows to the corners of the tables. Use personalized satin pillows as place markers. Make a centerpiece featuring the theme, such as tropical fruit or teddy bears. Or try individual wedding cakes. Play romantic music in the background.
• Put together a collage of bride and groom photos and hang them around the room. Or create a video montage set to music.
• Add decorative touches, such as wedding bubble bottles, wedding fortune cookies, wedding conversation hearts, wedding candy wrappers, all set inside champagne flutes, tiny wedding boxes, wedding chests, or bride and groom baseball hats.

Games & Activities

• Videotape the guests offering the bride and groom marital advice. Or ask guests to record their marital advice and good wishes in the pages of a scrapbook.
• Have the bridal couple tell how they met and why they love each other. Have other couples share how they met and see who has the most interesting story.
• Have guests ask the couple questions about each other to see how well they really know each other.

Refreshments

• Serve elegant appetizers, such as baked Brie topped with sliced strawberries, molded cheeses and pates, and fruit salads in decorative bowls. Make mini-sandwiches from croissants or cream puff shells and fill them with a variety of spreads and fillings.
• Set up food stations with different food themes, such as Mexican, Italian, French, Chinese, and American.
• Serve platters of cold cuts, deli style, and let the guests make their own sandwiches. Make edible centerpieces from fruits, vegetables, and cheeses.
• Have the bakery make a wedding cake featuring the wedding theme. Or make your own and top it with fresh fruit and flowers in the bride's colors.
• For fun, consider serving a cake made from the couple’s favorite snack, such donuts, cupcakes, cookies, and so on.

Suggested Gifts for the Couple
Other than buying something from their registry, you might consider:

• Personalized photo album or scrapbook for the wedding pictures
• Advice book on love and marriage
• Brass nameplate for the front door, inscribed with their new name
• Framed copy of the wedding invitation

Favors

• Small candies wrapped in tulle bags
• Plastic champagne glasses filled with candy
• Small decorative candles or heart-shaped soaps

Thank yous
Buy small gift items on your honeymoon to add to your thank you notes.