For those who don’t remember our reception area, it’s called the Owl’s Nest, is perched above a building that houses and hides a big ‘ol water tank (fashionable function, gotta love it), and affords views of all three main lakes at Honey Lake Plantation.
The Owl’s Nest at Honey Lake Plantation | personal image
While the views are lovely, the inside of the space is a little on the plain side.
Owl’s Nest as it looked on our first tour, set up as their cigar bar | personal image
So when we found out that colored linens didn’t come standard (we’d been told otherwise on that first meeting, but didn’t get in writing–always get it in writing!!!) our reception space was starting to look somewhat bland with the standard white linens.
Owl’s Nest with rather boring white linens | personal mock-up
Seeing as the look I really loved was more along the lines of dark, bare wood tables with white napkins and runners on them for that stark contrast, but renting those pretty tables wasn’t anywhere close to being in our budget, I’d decided to go with dark brown tablecloths and white napkins in that waterfall style (I guess that’s what it’s called–the napkin is folding in narrow thirds and draped from the center of the place setting downward). Thankfully, I found just the right linens from SmartyHadAParty.com for about 2/3 (including shipping) of what the venue’s rental folks wanted to charge (before the venue’s 20% service fee). Sold!
Brown linens, white napkins–somewhat more interesting | personal mock-up
But then one day I went wandering down the newly reinstated fabric aisle at Wal-Mart out of idle curiosity (a habit which has gotten me multiple bins of fabric in The Abyss over the years) and I found the perfect fabric to use as table runners!
Smarty Had a Party included Smarties candy with my order–how sweet! Ordered linens on the bottom, runner fabric on the top. | personal image
As you can see, though, the runner fabric has an ivory background, so I’m thinking now that we’re going to use the other standard napkins that HLP provides (green) to prevent clashing. Admittedly I’m probably the only one who would notice, but it would bug me and it doesn’t cost anything for this change, so changed it will be. I bought whatever was on the bolt for the vine fabric and my Google-fu tells me that unless I come across another spare bolt by chance, that’s all the fabric I get as the manufacturer has closed down and everywhere I find it online has it listed as out of stock. Still, the 6-ish yards should give me the needed runners for our 6 dining tables plus some extra that I’m thinking will make an excellent altar cloth for the ceremony. I’ll figure something else out (or not) for dressing up the high-top tables for cocktail hour.
And finally the “room” is starting to come together | personal mock-up
With some mocked-up wine bottle centerpieces added (the real ones are still in the works, more details to come), our cork monogram (as yet still a planned project) on the door behind where the bride and groom will be conveniently seated, and a few more place-holder squiggles, I’m finally liking what I’m seeing. Speaking of squiggles–did I mention we get to hang stuff on the posts in the Owl’s Nest?! That almost never happens in event spaces, so I’m planning some ribbon and faux-grape swags to hang on each of the 8 post/pillar things along the length of the space.
I can hardly wait to see how it turns out in reality! I think I might have to drag out the folding table and do a test set-up at some point. If nothing else it’ll be good to photograph and send to the DoC for set-up examples. (Like Miss Rucksack, I’m pretty Type-A about these sorts of things, too!)