Dressing the Tables

A few weekends ago, (wow this has taken me WAY too long to get around to typing) we went back to our venue for a tasting and linen fun. The tasting, I have no pictures of (I suck, I know).

So I'll tell you quickly that it all tasted pretty good with 2 exceptions. One sauce was WAAAAYYYY too salty. I am pretty sensitive to salt. I think things are too salty that other people say "there is salt in this?". So when I tasted it first, I very much tamed my response and simply said it was rather salty to me, what did others think? O.M.G. Their faces were priceless! I wish I had taken pictures because it was like a lemon face with a nauseous twist. Well, glad to know it wasn't just me. No problem, the chef said he'd tame it down. (I think he knocked over the Morton tub without noticing.) Then came the Kalua Pork, our favorite hawaiian dish. It was good pork, but it wasn't kalua. It was his first time making it and he followed a recipe but it jsut wasn't quite it. He asked us what it was missing...umm... becuase I am such a pro at making this? I don't know dude - YOU are the chef!!! Oh well, he said he'd try some other recipies. Fingers crossed it turns out well, if not - at least it'll be good pulled pork!

Then, it was on to the linens. Rachelle, our wedding planner, had ordered samples from her linen peoples. Before we get any further in to this let me say this - I suggested we do the basic (cheapest) white linens, and the color would come from napkins and flowers. Simple and cheap(er). That idea got shot down like a duck in season. So now we are up to the color linens. My mother hated the linens that were the typical cheap fabric but in color. Up it a notch to the fancy color linens and now we start choosing. And by "we" I mean, my mother, Adam, me, and Rachelle. Apparently, we had to be unanimous. 3 HOURS later we had finally chosen them.

Please excuse that some photos captured colors and textures better than others.
(All photos courtesy of moi.)
I am not a fan of all the tables being exactly the same, so we will be mixing centerpieces and tablecloths.
First up, pretty aqua pin tuck!

(We might be using the napkins with the silver edge you see above.)

The real color is actually somewhere between those two photos. The top one looked a little too green, and this shot looks too blue.

For the high top bar tables we decided to snazz it up a little and add a fun overlay. Those white stripes actually shimmer quite a bit. But a little while later, we found a more fun sparkly one. So it'll be similar to this pic except it'll be sparkles instead of stripes.

Same thing for the cake and escort card tables, simple white under and a fun sparkly overlay.

So we'll have 1/2 the tables be the aqua pintuck and then the other half in this fun krinkly dark blue below. All pintuck is a little too formal/preppy for our tastes, but I love mixing it with an unexpected fabric texture.

And, as usual I managed to sneak my tootsies into the photo. :-)

As I pointed out above, this all took about 3 hours to decide. The most entertaining thing about it has actually been people's reactions to my saying we spent 3 hours on linens. Its either
"3 hours?! Thats it!? I took 2 weeks to choose!"
or
"3 hours!? Seems like an awful waste of time on linens. Huh... come to think of it, I have no idea what was on the tables at our wedding."

I tend to agree more with the latter comment, but I am assured by everyone else that it will have a huge impact on the space and potentially save us some money on flowers.

Ok, first up - whatcha think of the linens?
Secondly, how much time did you spend on yours?