Marquee Wedding Receptions II

Con­tin­u­ing with our fea­ture on mar­quee recep­tions (from wed­ding mar­quees part I) we now dis­cuss the cater­ing and design.

Photo credit: www.CountyMarquees.com

CATERERS

- Like with all sup­pli­ers meet at least 2 cater­ers before mak­ing a deci­sion on who to use. When com­par­ing quo­ta­tions check whether it includes:

• Staff for the wed­ding break­fast, drink recep­tion, bar, wine serv­ing & clearing
• Cut­lery, crock­ery and glassware
• All cook­ing equip­ment & refrig­er­a­tion trailers

- I also advise ask­ing whether their staff is agency or reg­u­lar wait­resses they have worked with fre­quently. This can make a big dif­fer­ence on the day.

- Check with your cater­ers what size cater­ing tent they need to ser­vice your wed­ding proficiently

- Ensure your cater­ers have access to fresh water, this can be sim­ply an extend­able hose into the cater­ing tent

- Ask your caterer how many staff they need to cater for your wed­ding in a timely man­ner; this is not an area to save costs on.

- Reit­er­ate to the cater­ers that all wastage, includ­ing water from the urn should be taken off site and dis­posed of, oth­er­wise you may be look­ing at a hefty bill for dam­age to the lawn

Photo credit: www.CountyMarquees.com

DESIGN

- Be imag­i­na­tive with the design, if your theme is but­ter­flies then why not have a but­ter­fly lin­ing? Try cres­cent moon for cus­tom made lin­ings www.crescent-moon.co.uk

- Think about the car­pet colour and seat pads care­fully, they should match your wed­ding theme and colours, not clash, if in doubt go neutral.

- Light­ing is key for wed­dings now so ask your mar­quee com­pany about up-lighters or spot lights on tables from above, this cre­ates a very pow­er­ful effect. Can­de­labras look amaz­ing when night begins to fall. In the gar­den place gar­den lanterns (you can hire these from www.dreamoccasions-hire.co.uk)  on trees and in flower beds to make a fea­ture of them, if the weather is nice hope­fully guests will be spend­ing time outside.

- Arrange the lay­out so min­i­mal dis­rup­tion is caused when mov­ing fur­ni­ture. Try­ing to remove a long top table form the dance floor when evening guests have arrived is not much fun. I advise avoid­ing hav­ing tables on the dance floor unless absolutely necessary.

- Speak with your florist about cre­at­ing a high impact dis­play, small low arrange­ments just get lost in the ceil­ing height. A com­bi­na­tion of high/low arrange­ments works best

- Ask to see the mar­quee chairs before agree­ing to hire them, some hire chairs should have been taken out of ser­vice years ago. Ask for spares so you can only place out the good ones, have some­one on site to take deliv­ery of the chairs and qual­ity check them.

- If there is one thing that can break a theme it is rough and starched linen. Speak with your plan­ner or caterer about hir­ing in some designer linen, there is a range of colours and styles you can get. Ensure the cloths are to the floor and make a fea­ture from the nap­kins; no I’m not talk­ing danc­ing swans! You can fold the nap­kins so they have a pocket in which favours or a rose can be placed or if you are very cre­ative fold it so it resem­bles a tie.

- Try rais­ing the dance floor and have steps lead­ing up to it. Line alter­na­tive pots of flow­ers with up-lighters to light the dance floor from below.

- Many peo­ple now have big dis­plays on the mar­quee poles (if tra­di­tional mar­quee) but why not ask your florists to cre­ate a palm tree or wil­low tree with twigs and blooms? In other words if you don’t have a tree as a fea­ture within the mar­quee, make one instead!

- Ask the mar­quee com­pany to sep­a­rate the band/DJ area with a cur­tain then can be eas­ily draped to one side. There is noth­ing worse than see­ing a bride’s hard work spoilt by obtru­sive speak­ers and drum sets behind the top table.

Thanks to this article’s author Bernadette, owner of Dream Occa­sions. Bernadette has a fan­tas­tic rep­u­ta­tion as one of the UK’s best wed­ding plan­ners. Past wed­dings have been seen in Cosmo Bride, You and Your Wed­ding and An Essex Wedding.

Bernadette also man­ages Dream Occa­sions Hire – fin­ish­ing touches for wed­dings and events in East Anglia.