Being married in a barn has become so popular that we could have predicted that it would spawn interesting additions to accessorizing and expanding the country mood.
Burlap is the material of the moment for table runners. If you want a surprising touch of old-fashioned glamour, add a narrow strip of satin on top of the burlap. The combination will make people smile – and it’s also both unusual and decorative. Old-fashioned drinking glasses or glass mason jars are being collected to hold country flowers and they make charming centrepieces.
Weathered wood is ideal for home-made signs that direct guests to their destinations. Hand-print them and make them funny!
Scan the pages of old newspapers and print them on coloured paper for handmade placemats that guests will want to read. “Oh! Look! Janice was born on 1985. Let’s see what was happening that day!”
Attach guests’ names to a pointed stick and push the stick into a piece of fruit. Set them at each place setting. Edible place cards are a great addition. Perhaps peaches midsummer or apples in the autumn.
An alternate place card could be small chalk boards at each place with each guests’ name.
Design and print your own menus and put at each place setting. People love to know what they are about to eat and it adds to the enjoyment factor – hugely! The menu can be a factor, too. Use all the locally-grown produce available.
And why not have a kid-style ice-cream bar with old-fashioned cones? Nothing makes adults feel younger than licking an ice cream cone!
Let the sense of country and sense of fun carry the day. At Today’s Bride, we’ve received wedding pictures of brides in wedding dresses and wearing boots! (The guests loved it!)
Originally published in Today’s Bride magazine, Fall/Winter 2015.
