It was so beautiful I cried

All photos by Edmund Moon of Daily Thousand Words unless otherwise noted

My reaction after seeing our reception room and expressing my gratitude to our awesome planner Kathy Bado. Yes I have the ugly cry face.

I was able to hold back the tears the whole day, even through my ceremony, but when I walked into my reception room I cried. The whole time the only thing Roosevelt and I could say was "OH WOW!" I felt like it was everything I wanted it to be and more. It was so intimate and romantic. Our florist Maire from Flower Sculpture did a fantastic job on the centerpieces and our planner Kathy and the Four Seasons were wonderful in coordinating everything and adding little touches here and there.

First this is what we feasted our eyes upon outside our reception room.

A good three weeks before the wedding we were still going back and forth as to what our escort table should like. The only thing that was definite is that it should be covered with moss but with what type of florals sitting upon it that was undecided. After a 20 minute conversation with Marie our florist where she outlined what types of florals she wanted to use, I pretty much left it up to her and she did not disappoint. It was different, it was grand and it definitely set the tone for the reception. There were two large glass containers and two smaller ones filled with pomander balls covered in green and white mums. Atop the glass containers were arrangements of hydregena and garden roses. White rose petals were sprinkled on the moss and arrangements of candles flowed out from the center. I did my escort cards myself and went with a simple cream shimmer cardstock with chocolate brown font and a little rhinestone embellishment on each.

Then we walked in and saw our room as they were putting the finishing touches.

I went back and forth about the table setup that I wanted. I originally wanted two long tables, but given the room and the fact that we were having a buffet this was not condusive to an ideal flow. I also hate round tables and from other functions I have attended I knew that they were immediately out. So I decided to rent square tables that sat 8 from Select Event Rentals. I was adamant about renting chivari chairs. I learned from wedding planning that few places have them as part of their standard package. Even the Four Seasons had somewhat unattractive chairs. And they really do make a difference in the look of the room. I had to convince my husband that the extra expense was worth it but he totally agreed once seeing the room. We also went with a taupe colored linen that had a gold undertone for our tablecloths from Total Table. Even though our colors were chocolate brown, pink, and cream I wanted to not be so matchy matchy and pull in our color theme in subtle ways.

We had food stations on 3 sides of the room and Marie and Kathy set up small florals (dahlias, roses, and moss) all around. Also I had purchased a ton of candles wholesale and they were on each table and scattered throughout the room.

We had two different cenerpieces for the four guest tables each made up of roses, hydrengenas, and dahlias. Each of the centerpieces were elevated on boxes covered in moss and pillar and votive candles scattered around the box. Here is a guest pick of one of the centerpieces that had an arrangement on top of a large glass container that held a huge garden rose floating in water.

Guest photo

For our table we had a large arrangement of two stacked moss boxes with a large floral coming out of the top box with rose petals and votives around the base.

For our table numbers I took vintage postcards of Philadelphia that I bought on ebay and applied a sepia tone before printing them out on 5x7 cardstock. I also designed our menu cards and had them tucked in each guest's napkin with spray roses.

On our desert table you could see the customized cupcake bags I made for our guests, the personalized napkins I made with our monogram, and the cupcake signs. We used cake stands from my own collection which were all white and pink to display our cupcakes.

We choose not to go with a large cutting cake but instead went with a 6" small red velvet cake covered in fondant for cutting and cupcakes for our guests. Which was a much more economical choice. Our cutting cake was topped with a clay peony I purchased on etsy from ccbycherie and sat a top a cake stand from my own collection. Our desert table was covered with a bed of moss and sprinkled with white rose petals.

I made chair signs from a tutorial I found on Elizabeht Anne Designs as a way to designate our seats and officially mark us a Mr & Mrs Peterson

In th corner near the door was a display of the boquets surronded by rose petals and candles.

Next up our menu!