Wedding Décor

First Impressions

When guests arrive at your wedding ceremony venue, they’ll be taken by the beauty of the site, and a celebratory tone is set immediately by the smiling, friendly greeters standing at the entrance. It’s a new trend to ask close relatives or friends to serve as your official welcome party, greeting the guests and pointing them toward the inside or garden wedding location. They may hand out your wedding programs and also let guests know where champagne is being served – in the case of a garden wedding taking place on-site – or even where small children may be taken for sitter service during the ceremony.

The immediate recognition of greeters puts guests at ease, eliminating the ‘where do we go?’ concerns that some guests may have when they arrive at a sprawling wedding location. With the guidance of your greeters, guests enter the wedding site ready to enjoy themselves, soon met inside by banquet site staff members bearing drinks for their refreshment.

How to Select Your Greeters

 Choose at least three special friends or relatives, ideally from your and your groom’s sides so that someone at the wedding venue entrance can recognize arriving guests. If you have an extremely large guest list, choose four greeters to eliminate a line forming at the door.

Choose guests who are naturally friendly, upbeat and good conversationalists who have no anxieties about talking to strangers.

Instructions for Greeters

 Ask greeters to stand just outside of the wedding venue entrance, on the steps or at the base of steps, so that they’re immediately seen by arriving guests. At an outdoor wedding, they might stand at a point where the pathway leading to the ceremony begins.

Make it a firm rule that greeters are not to text, check their iPhones, or be distracted by their dates. Their full focus must be on their greeting tasks.

Ask guests to dress in accordance with the wedding’s formality. Since these are representatives of your wedding, it is perfectly okay to set a dress code, such as cocktail-length dress or suit.

Let greeters know how many wedding programs to give out, such as one program per couple, or one program per guest. If your wedding budget is limited, or if you’re having a green wedding, this top wedding idea eliminates waste.

If you expect guests who do not speak English, it’s smart to choose a greeter who speaks, for instance, Spanish or Italian for a welcome greeting guests appreciate.

Give greeters full information on where essentials are, such as the coat check, restrooms, handicap access to the ceremony site, so that they may instruct guests who request these locations.

Remember to give greeters information on directions to the reception site, if it is different from the ceremony location. Having a stack of printed driving directions is always a smart wedding idea, even if guests decide to just program the reception address into their GPS or smartphone as they exit your ceremony location.

Wedding greeters should remain at the entrance to your wedding venue until the last possible minute before your wedding ceremony or reception begin, so that late-arriving guests are welcomed and directed.

Michael Mahle, Director of Communications, Pleasantdale Chateau

Wedding bouquets have been brightly-colored for the past few wedding seasons, with more couples choosing vibrant shades rather than pastel shades for their bride’s bouquets and bridesmaid bouquets. We’re in an era of lively hues for both daytime and nighttime weddings, with combinations of 2012 wedding colors such as lilac and blue, orange and yellow, and red and orange, with seasonal weddingcombinations also abounding.

Wedding Bouquet

Pastels. When 2012 wedding couples choose pastel bouquet shades, it’s most often for a romantic, Victorian-style wedding, or one inspired by the royal wedding. Soft pinks and blush blue bouquet colors are still in-demand by today’s romantic-styled bride, and we’re also seeing pastel yellow and soft sage green in the pastel wedding bouquet trends list.

All white with sparkle. All-white wedding bouquets still stand out, with our New Jersey brides adding in lots of bling in the form of Swarovski crystals and rhinestones in the bouquet construction itself, often pressed into the centers of roses, or affixed to ribbons that wrap around the bouquet handle or cascade through the bouquet design itself.

Brooches with bling. Artsy brides are starting to create DIY wedding bouquets made entirely of rhinestone brooches for dazzling sparkle, carrying a piece of jewelry art rather than florals.

Fluffier flowers. The flowers used in 2012’s top wedding bouquet designs include roses, calla lilies, gardenias, imported tropical stephanotis, and softer, fluffier flowers such as peonies and ranunculus. Carnations are no longer looked at as a ‘cheap flower,’ since the new varieties of this bloom give brides an array of bright colors and fluffy, ridged petals, some striped and some lined with coordinating colors.

An array of flowers. Brides want visual interest in their bouquet flowers and are choosing a blend of traditional, unique and local flowers to keep their costs down while designing their dream wedding bouquets. What’s out is the single flower carried by each of the bridesmaids – it’s too obvious an attempt at wedding budget savings and doesn’t make enough of a design impact.

Handle design. Brides are paying special attention to the décor on their bouquet handles, often requesting that their floral stems be wrapped with lengths of stunning satin or silk, tied with a ribbon bow, and pinned with pearl or crystal accents in a line down the handle. The days of the arched plastic carrying handle are over, and now the handle gets its time to shine. The fabric on the handle may be an intricately-wrapped combination of white and pastel pink satin, with a crystal brooch affixing the ribbon wrap. Or a crystal brooch affixed to the bottom circle of the bouquet stems for a unique effect. Some of our Northern New Jersey brides say they attach saint medallions, goddess medallions and family heirloom pins or medallions to their bouquet handles to provide an extra dash of luck and protection for their marriage.

Personalized to your wedding look. Wedding bouquets invite our brides to partner with their local floral designers to create a dramatic bouquet coordinating with their dress and complementary to their height and frame, also personalized with their choices of flower colors, foliage styles, and added bouquet accents for the perfect, dream bridal bouquet, as well as subtler bridesmaid bouquets and the new trend: small bouquets for moms, grandmothers and flowergirls to carry.

Your bouquet will look lovely coordinated with the romantic wedding venue’s gardens in bloom, as well as with your wedding décor details.

Michael Mahle, Director of Communications, Pleasantdale Chateau

Wedding Trends

Our Northern New Jersey wedding couples most often find that their families and friends give them wedding gifts in the form of a check in an envelope, but with weddings bringing friends, family and work associates together from all corners of the globe, we are seeing more wrapped wedding gifts at today’s wedding celebrations. That calls for a decorated wedding gift table in the reception ballroom, where guests may place and display their beautifully-wrapped wedding presents for the bride and groom.

Wedding décor methods apply to every detail in the wedding ballroom, large and small, so we and our New Jersey wedding coordinator contacts pay special attention to both the design and the functionality of the gift table. Here are the top trends for making your wedding gift table more attractive and fitting to your wedding theme and décor style:

1.      Your gift table linens can have a style of their own. They do not have to be the same color, fabric, texture and style as the wedding guest table linens. Many of our wedding couples choose an alternative color and style of linens for the gift table, guest book table and other wedding venue entrance display tables, and these might be accented, shimmery, crystal-sewn, even patterned linens that reach the floor on all sides for the most polished effect.

1. Add a table runner. Just like the wedding guest table décor, add a length of décor fabric to extend along the table to create a colorful, decorative effect.
2. Decorate the front edge of the table. An extra garland from your wedding floral décor can be strung along the front of your gift table. A fabric drape might have your monogram on it, in a color matching your guest table décor accents.
3. Place your wedding gift box or wedding gift birdcage on this table, ideally in the center, for guests to use and wrapped-gifts to surround.
4. Allow the gift display to take its own form as guests place their presents there. Don’t worry about arranging gifts on the table.
5. Skip the votive candle holders. Even though these are pretty accents, you don’t want a gift ribbon to fall into the flame and create a disaster. If you like the look of candlelight on the gift table, a top wedding idea is to set up flameless candles or LED light cubes in glass vases for a budget-friendly wedding décor look.
6. Provide room on either side of the gift table for guests to place extremely large wrapped gifts that cannot be placed on the table itself. When you allow room for these boxes, they will not pile up around the table, jutting into high traffic areas.
7. When you bring your wedding reception supplies to us prior to your wedding, bring a few large, empty, plastic-lidded bins in which we can securely pack your wedding gifts for home transport. We’re happy to help bring your gifts to your car, but we recommend these bins for easy use on your big day and also for organizing systems in your home after the wedding.

Michael Mahle, Director of Communications, Pleasantdale Chateau

Wedding cake trends change swiftly and beautifully….just like wedding dress trends. From elegant simplicity to wild and whimsical colors, today’s wedding cake captures the personalities of the bride and groom, suits the season, fits the formality and delights wedding guests as a centerpiece of the reception ballroom décorand eventually as a delectable highlight of the dessert hour.

Wedding Cakes

Here are the top trends for wedding cakes in 2012:

Height: Wedding cakes are getting taller in 2012, not just with the number of tiers but rather with the height of each tier in the creation of an elevated cake.

Flavors: In 2011 weddings, red velvet cake was all the rage, and now that trend is fading out in 2012, in favor of exotic flavors such as pomegranate, blackberry blueberry, fig, orange chocolate, and blends of creamy textures with exotic fruits. One top flavor composition is a moist cake with a fruit filling, such as white chiffon with blackberry mousse or banana cake with crème brulee filling or chocolate wedding cake with white chocolate mousse and raspberry filling. In addition to fruit-filled cake, we’re also seeing carrot cake with cream cheese filling holding on as a favorite of our brides and grooms.

Invitation-Inspired: Wedding cakes of 2011 were very much designed to look like wedding couture, with layers and folds of fondant to look like wedding dress fabric, and sparkling accents to mimic the crystals or rhinestones on the bride’s dress. Now, cakes are taking their inspiration from the wedding invitation, namely the layers of textured paper, vellums, fabrics, pearlized borders and the colors the bride and groom have chosen in their wedding invitation design.

Colors: Wedding cakes are returning to all-white for a pristine, elegant simplicity that is hand-painted and hand-accented by top NJ cake designers with all-white designs, vibrant color cut-outs of fondant or sugar paste, or the new hot color combination for 2012 wedding cakes: black and white.

Going Royal: The royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton put everything regal back on the map for wedding trends in 2012. Opulent designs with lots of piped white icing rosettes, ‘drapes,’ and painstaking lacy details give a sophisticated edge to a royal wedding cake look, whether it’s a modern-day royal wedding design or a lacey, finely-detailed wedding cake from Marie Antoinette’s era. The effect is refined, detailed and princess-like.

Simplicity. A wedding cake frosted in smooth layers, looking like wrapped boxes and very minimally accented with cut-out sugar paste or piped-on icing pearls is a very big wedding cake trend for 2012. Budget weddings often call for less ornate wedding details, but this style of wedding cake looks more expensive than it is. In a single, solid color, this cake wows wedding guests for being a stunningly simple work of art.

Artistic: A number of New Jersey and New York wedding couples choose a wedding cake design filled with colorful, vibrant accents, swirls, sugar paste cutouts, in a whimsical and artistic flair. These complex, geometric cakes are eye-catching and unforgettable, the perfect end to a fine dining experience.

Nature-inspired: As a stylistic evolution of the green wedding, or eco-friendly wedding with an emphasis on nature, it’s become a trend for wedding cakes to show off more flowers, even sugar-paste leaves and actual branches. The colors of nature-inspired cakes are most often white, off-white or a muted golden shade to show off the pastel florals, and we’ve also seen some robin’s egg blue cakes in the wedding reception dessert roundup.

Flower accents: Whether they’re real or fashioned from fondant, sugar paste or marzipan, flowers remain a popular wedding cake accent. In 2012, wedding cakes will be decorated with more magnolias, peonies, tulips, ranunculus and especially blue orchids, while last year’s roses and daisies fade back a bit.

Cake Stand Design: Many creative brides and grooms plan lovely presentations for their wedding cakes, displaying them in their wedding reception venue with elevated stands or colorful blocks, even wood platforms and ornate pedestals displaying their cakes.

Wedding Cake Bars: Why choose just one wedding cake? A big trend for 2012 is to select one main wedding cake design for your cake-cutting ritual at your wedding reception, and then place that cake on a buffet table filled with an array of different, smaller wedding cakes in coordinating colors, but different flavors and fillings. Also on the cake bar: chocolate truffles, chocolate dipped strawberries, and other delectable desserts. Our finest NJ pastry chefs offer an array of top-trend wedding desserts that put the perfect finishing touch on your spectacular wedding reception.

Michael Mahle, Director of Communications, Pleasantdale Chateau

Jewish Wedding Ceremony

Your chuppah is the centerpiece of your wedding ceremony, and our Jewish wedding couples have designed beautiful chuppahs under which they become husband and wife. In our beautiful wedding location, we’ve seen elegant chuppahs, bejeweled chuppahs, floral-covered chuppahs, and true artistry done by local New Jersey wedding coordinators and floral designers in their designs.

We thought we’d share with you some of the top wedding décor trends related to chuppahs for Jewish weddings and interfaith weddings:

·        Spectacular Sparkle. The expanse of a wedding chuppah, from the top tenting to the draping of the sides, is covered with thousands of hand-glued or hand-sewn Swarovski crystals in swirling designs, with some forming the wedding couple’s monogram. As an alternative to the all-over crystal décor design, we’ve also seen wide lines of crystals as a frame around the top and sides of the chuppah.

• Dangling ‘Diamonds.’ Also in the sparkle category, chuppahs often drip with wire-suspended crystals. There may be a lineup of a dozen crystals per wire, or one larger crystal bauble at the end of each line.
• Raining Orchids. A top wedding trend is suspending décor items. Clear wire is also used to suspend hundreds of fresh flowers, from all-white orchids, to colorful blends of white and blue orchids, gardenias and other elegant flowers. At informal garden weddings, the chuppah may be festooned with a raining wall of white and yellow daisies, which also outline the chuppah’s frame.
• Gorgeous Garlands. Our favorite New Jersey floral designers have wowed us with thick, lush green garlands outlining the chuppah frame and hanging in draping arches as the roof of the chuppah. These garlands may be purely made of greenery in visually interesting textures, or they may be dotted with white or colorful flowers.
• Elegant Simplicity. Hold the sparkle, hold the flowers, hold the garlands. A new trend in elegant wedding décor is a completely accent-free chuppah designed entirely of rich fabric, pleated and draped, providing an unadorned backdrop so that the bride’s wedding dress can sparkle and shine while she stands below it.
• Aisle Runners. Coordinated to the colors of the chuppah, a big wedding trend is a wide, decorative aisle runner leading up to the structure, often leading up steps to where the bride and groom will stand. Today’s aisle runner designs are colorful and bold, or sparkling with thousands of hand-attached crystals, with floral motifs and metallic accents, and perhaps the couple’s favorite saying at the beginning of the runner. At the infamous Kim Kardashian wedding, the extra-long aisle runner featured black flourishes at several points along its length, and couples with dramatic flair are emulating that celebrity wedding style.
• Fabulous Flooring. The bride and groom are setting down artistic flooring or a twist on the aisle runner to create a decorative carpet in color, shine and personalization.
• Tied Accents. The front curtains of the chuppah may be tied back with tasseled lengths of fabric, or similarly sparkly crystal accents, even fresh floral nosegays in metallic cones or holders at the entrance. This is a top décor choice for couples on limited wedding budgets.
• Pedestal Florals. On either side of the chuppah, large planters filled with tall, dramatic flowers and branches create a garden wonderland look that adds extra bridal beauty to the space around the chuppah, widening its decorative effect.
• Using Heirloom Items: As a way to add dazzle without straining the wedding budget, our Jewish wedding couples are in increasing number accenting their chuppahs with crystal-accented ties and other décor items their parents used at their own weddings. This adds a dash of personalization and extra meaning to the wedding ceremony.

Michael Mahle, Director of Communications, Pleasantdale Chateau

Outdoor Wedding Ceremony

Outdoor wedding ceremonies are so romantic, and many of our brides and grooms say that among their top wedding ideas is having an outdoor ceremony so that they and their wedding guests can enjoy a beautifully-bloomed garden wedding venue as they take their vows.

We’ve hosted thousands of outdoor weddings here at our Northern New Jersey wedding venue, and we offer you the top tips for planning a spectacular outdoor wedding ceremony:

Michael Mahle, Director of Communications, Pleasantdale Chateau

Your wedding favors make the stylish ‘last impression’ on your wedding guests, so be sure to choose lovely favors, and create a wedding favor display that’s pleasing to the eye as well. When you take time to creatively display even the most modest of favors, your efforts create an effect that makes it seem like the favors are more expensive, more upscale and more of a treat. At our New Jersey wedding venue, we’ve seen some of the loveliest wedding favor display trends:

• Place one wedding favor at each guests’ place setting, in front of their plates.

• Create a wedding favors table by your gifts table, and set on it large, elegant silver platters that hold organized, even rows of your packaged favors. We use the same presentation style for our petit fours and other small desserts, so your favor treats will share the same elegant styling.

• Accent your wedding favors table with a floral centerpiece matching those on the guest tables, or place an 8”x10” framed photo of the two of you, paired with a framed, printed thank –you note from the two of you, in the center of the table, surrounded by your favors.

• Arrange your wedding favors on three-tier serving pedestals, just like our banquet managers and pastry chefs use with our dessert offerings, for an elegant look that matches the serving-style the guests have admired all throughout your reception and dessert hour.

• You can also use these three-tier serving pedestals as favor presentations that our servers can bring to each of your guest tables, creating an upscale presentation at the end of your reception.

• Our servers can also present each table’s favors on an elevated serving platter or on a small silver platter, with the platter garnished with additional chocolates, mints, or – a favorite at our New Jersey weddings – pastel-colored Jordan almonds.

• If you’ll make a donation to charity in lieu of traditional favors, display a framed printed announcement of your charity choice, and place next to it a basket of packaged cookies, chocolates or mints for guests to enjoy as they depart.

• Arrange one of the hottest current favor presentations – the favor bar. At this long table, guests use tongs or scoops to select their own choices of chocolates, truffles, brownie bites, colorful candies or other favor choices from glass bowls and platters. They package their own edible favor choices in either clear Lucite boxes or cellophane bags that they can tie with a ribbon. You can serve just truffles, or you can mix up your favor bar offerings to include bite-sized brownies, fudge squares, petit fours and an array of dessert indulgences.

Edible favors are the top choice at our Southern New Jersey wedding venue, but we’re also seeing single long-stemmed roses packaged in cellophane and ribbon, displayed in a tall, beautiful vase, ready for guests to choose their own take-home wedding flower.

All the best,

Caitlyn Bradley, Director of Private Dining, Ram’s Head Inn

One of the most important elements of beautiful wedding décor is the floral centerpiece set on each guest table, and here at our northern New Jersey wedding venue, we’re seeing gorgeous, innovative centerpieces inspired by the top wedding room décor trends shown in national and regional bridal magazines from North, Central and South Jersey, as well as the designs shown in real-wedding photo spreads of socialite New York City weddings. Here are the top trends to inspire you:

• Elevated floral centerpieces are back. While low-set floral bunches will always be popular for wedding table décor, today’s trends lift those large, lush, bountiful floral arrangements at least four feet off the tabletops, suspended on equally-gorgeous, decorated floral stands made of bronze, pewter, even wood in rustic-elegant wedding décor schemes.

• Elevated floral centerpieces contain multiple colors of flowers, most often a beautiful blend of brights and pastels.

• Classic, traditional floral pieces in ‘bridal white’ achieve great texture and dimension by using blends of cream and white shades.

• Elevated floral centerpieces reach down toward the tabletop in delicate drapings of floral strands, or a ‘willow tree’ effect of floral branches and suspended crystals on invisible wire.

• Crystals are being incorporated into floral centerpieces in greater number, in elegant style. They may be affixed by floral wire in stand-up, starburst effects, or individual crystals may even be pinned into the centers of roses. The crystals give a sparkling effect in the room when they reflect the flickering of candlelight and the glow of our soft lighting in the wedding reception room.

• New Jersey wedding couples now request the incorporation of locally-grown, in-season flowers to cut down on their carbon footprint, as a green wedding value in their day.

• New Jersey wedding couples are also using more leaves and greenery in their floral centerpieces, as well as in their general wedding room décor to coordinate with our garden wedding atmosphere. The use of greenery provides a lush, natural look and is also among the most effective budget wedding strategies.

• Centerpieces are arranged more often in clear glass vases, either rounds or squares, and also in tall rectangular shapes. Couples are also mixing up the sizes of their glass centerpiece vases to provide an eye-catching trio of low, medium and high-set centerpiece containers.

• Glass vases and bowls may also hold collections of colorful flower petals, with the bowls surrounded by color-matched votive candles in their own decorative glass votive holders.

Elements of nature play a new role in wedding centerpieces, just as they do in the designs of our own wedding gardens, so look into incorporating smooth river stones in neutral shades of gray, tan or brown, as well as mosses and tall, architectural branches to make your centerpieces stand out.

Have a great day!

Laura Madden, Senior Sales Manager, Pleasantdale Chateau

Some of our favorite wedding ceremonies that we’ve hosted  here at the Pleasantdale Chateau in West Orange, New Jersey have been masterpieces of wedding ceremony décor that truly took our breath away. Our wedding gardens and ballroom have been home to some of the top NJ floral designers’ works of art, including the following top wedding ceremony décor ideas:

Altar Décor:

• Trellises and chuppahs bursting with colorful flowers and greenery, including garlands, ivy and light-reflecting crystals.

• Flower petals scattered on the altar area ground, for the bride and groom to stand on.

• Decorative pedestals on either side of the ceremony altar, featuring large, lush floral arrangements.

• The bride and groom’s birthmonth flowers incorporated into the altar floral décor.

• Crystal bowls and vases filled with roses and other flowers, or colorful flower petals.

Aisle Décor:

• Traditional white aisle runner with crystals embedded into the fabric.

• Colorful aisle runners with the couple’s names and monogram printed at the start of the runner.

• Floral nosegays or pomanders attached to the ends of each row of seats.

• Each seat covered with a fabric chair cover, tied with a colorful ribbon.

• Each seat covered with a fabric chair cover, accented on the back with a tiny floral nosegay.

• Instead of an aisle runner, colorful flower petals are lined on either side of the aisle.

Wedding Garden Décor:

• Flowers strung from invisible wires ‘raining’ down from the trees.
• Large, dramatic crystals on invisible wires ‘raining’ down from the trees.

• Trees encircled with floral wraps or garlands.

• Lanterns suspended from the trees for evening ceremony décor accents.

• Floating candles in water features.

• Our garden lighting accents transforming the evening scene with colors and highlighting our manicured wedding garden landscaping.

We invite our brides and grooms to share their most wished-for wedding ceremony décor ideas with our banquet manager team, and we will help you create your beautiful wedding décor scene.

Have a great day!

Laura Madden, Senior Sales Manager, Pleasantdale Chateau

Every bride and groom wishes to personalize their wedding décor, looking at their wedding ceremony site, their wedding reception venue, their wedding gardens…and one of the most popular décor ideas right now is decorating with your wedding monogram.

When you entwine your first initials together, or simply use the initial of your new, shared last name, this style of décor carries a great sense of symbolism. Your new, married monogram depicts your partnership, the joining together of your lives.

Here are some of the most inspiring ways that our New Jersey wedding couples are incorporating wedding monograms into so many aspects of their wedding décor:

Ceremony Decor

• On your wedding programs, with your entwined monogram featured on the front of your wedding programs or as a small, top-of-page accent on each wedding program page.

• At the start of your aisle runner, with your wedding monogram design silkscreened beautifully onto the fabric.

• As a part of your unity candle décor (some styles of unity candles feature oval ‘frames’ where photos can be slid in. Use this ‘frame’ to showcase your entwined monogram instead)

• As part of aisle or pew décor, such as a small silver frame containing your single last-name initial, attached to a pew bow or floral accent piece.

Outdoor Wedding Garden Décor

• Individual flowers, such as white roses, spell out your last name initial or entwined first initials in a large garden hedge or shrub.
• Your wedding monogram can be spelled out in staked flowers on the grounds, perhaps by a walkway.

• Pedestals at the start of the aisle can display floral pieces that showcase your monogram in flowers.

Wedding Room Décor

• ‘Gobo’ lights can project your wedding monogram beautifully onto the dance floor or onto the reception ballroom walls.

• Your guest book can feature your beautiful, custom-designed wedding monogram on the cover, and also at the top of each page.

• Your monogram can be printed at the top or far left portion of your place cards.

• Your monogram can be printed on each table number sign.

• Your monogram can be printed at the top of each guest table menu card.

• Ice sculptures can be designed in your monogram design, set on buffet tables or on food station tables.

• Place setting plates and chargers can feature your married last initial monogram.

• Table runners and napkins can be printed or embroidered with your married monogram design.

• Centerpiece designs can be made using flower petals arranged into your monogram shape at the center of each guest table.

• Pillar candles used as table centerpieces can feature your wedding monogram.

• Wedding favor votive candles and favor boxes can be imprinted with your monogram.

Wedding Food Accents

• Your wedding cake can be piped with your beautiful, intricate married monogram as the ultimate in indulgent wedding décor.
• Cupcakes on the dessert table can be piped with your last initial on top.
• Our pastry chef can swirl your wedding monogram in dessert sauce onto each guest’s wedding cake serving plate.

Have a great day!

Laura Madden, Senior Sales Manager, Pleasantdale Chateau