Wedding at the Oregon Gardens

My friend Marisa got married over the weekend at the gorgeous Oregon Gardens. She didn't need much as far as decor went, since the place itself is the decor, but she had a few things that added to the event. I was lucky enough to be able to help set-up the ceremony, cocktail, and reception sites. Thankfully, I had my husband and sister with me to tackle all the projects.

Here are just a couple of cute ideas and decorations from her big day.

Escort cards inside a vintage suitcase. Marisa had classy vintage travel theme as part of her wedding. She hand wrote all the names of her guests on the escort cards and we had the fun challenge of displaying them.

The cards on the bottom were laid inside paper folded up accordion style. The middle cards were tucked into a seam of the suitcase and the top ones were stuck into the lining of the suitcase with a straight pin. One of the challenges discussed before the wedding was what she was going to do with her friends who didn't share the same last name? She wanted the cards laid out in alphabetical order, but it was easy to do with couples who shared the same last name. So those guests, either because they are dating, married, but didn't take one another's names, or in a same sex relationship, what would make the most sense? We went with alpha order between the two people. So looking at the last names of the couple, whose last name came first? Using their last name, the card was inserted into the pile in alpha order.

Behind the vintage suitcases, was a framed world vintage looking map. Marisa cleanly stuck map pins and string into cities and places they've been, were born, been to separately and together. She created a little legend in the corner and color coded everything, so guests could learn more about them.

Her reception tables were glass vases of varying heights, shapes, and colors. We predetermined how many of what size were needed for each table. Then we went around a filled some with candles and others with one or two dahlias.

The table number was a picture of a famous city they have traveled to. Each picture looked a little vintage and on the back of the number had a little story about that city.