Themes to Make Your Tables Stand Out

The table is the first impression of your reception. It’s the tip off of a night of dancing, eating and celebrating with friends and family. So give your guests a great welcoming with unique table themes. It’s fun for you - and fun for your guests when they’ve run out of things to talk about. Try these ideas: Vineyard Do you and your groom-to-be have an appreciation for the finer things in life? Organize your tables with a vineyard theme, says Elizabeth Hendricks, event coordinator for Oh How Charming in Los Angeles. “You can get different types of wine for each table,” Hendricks says. “You can have a pinot grigio table and then choose other wines to make up the other ‘vineyards.’” Play up the theme by using cork tops for nametags. Travel Choose places in the world that interest you or that are part of your heritage, then design the theme of the table around those locales. An Italy table could have a wine bottle, grapes and breadsticks, says Nora Sheils, owner of Bridal Bliss in Portland, Ore. A Hawaii table could have coconut shells or a floral lei. You also can keep maps on the table so guests can share where they’ve been or fun facts about a certain group of islands or country. To personalize the tables even more, add a photo of you and your fiancé at each other of the locations, if possible. In the case of more exotic locations, a little Photoshop never hurt! Board Games They’re accessible to everyone and a great way to pass the time between the main course and dessert. Make one table Pictionary, another Apples to Apples and another Scrabble. It can be as simple as a deck of cards or an electronic version of Catchphrase. And some of your guests may like to take a break from dancing later on to sit around, talk and play. Street Names Choose a theme that brought you and your fiancé together, like landmarks that are special to you. “I worked with a couple recently that named their tables after street names that they had lived on or were significant in their lives for one reason or another,” Sheils says. “We took photos of all the street signs, blew them up and had them on each of the tables. It was a fun project and was very fitting for their wedding.” Music You’ve chosen the perfect first song. But there might be plenty of other songs that defined specifically influenced your relationship. It could be the song you danced to at your first formal or what was playing on the radio when you realized that you loved your fiancé. Center each table with the theme of that song. Use music-note confetti, and use sheet music and card stock for place cards. Decorate the table from the era of the song. Then challenge each table to be the stars on the dance floor when DJ plays the song. Movies Go to a poster shop and place a movie poster at each table. Give your guests a chance to play trivia with fun facts from your favorite movies or “Six Degrees of of Kevin Bacon.” You can make the kids table Disney-themed and your grandmother’s table “Gone with the Wind” themed. Use movie props from a supply store as decorations. Write out famous lines from the movie on pieces of stationary and place them around the table. Or write a fun fact from the movie on each person’s place card. Sports Naming your tables by sport can be a fun idea. Just make sure you don’t feed any team rivalry. For instance, sit your college friends at a table themed with your college’s mascot, says Sheils. Include colored confetti, pom poms, photos of the stadium and ticket stubs in the theme. If you have a tennis team, place them at the Roger Federer table, Sheils says. You can also find sports decorations at any party store.