Chair Tactics to Sitting Pretty

Picture from Ceremony Magazine

Q: How to I dress up my chairs without renting linens?

A: I asked a lot about how to make average reception chairs look amazing, or merely fit in to the clients overall wedding look. Unfortunately, these necessary evils are usually overlooked when making out your wedding budget, until you see them and realize that you don’t like them.

Remember, this isn’t a matter of covering one or two, this is decorating all of them and that can add up larger your guest count. So, what can you do without breaking your bank? I have a list of 5 great ideas that you’ll love.

***NOTE – I do want to stress, that in my professional opinion spending money on linens is worth every penny. That’s for chair covers, table covers, and overlays. They have a huge impact on your overall wedding reception look, and they are even more critical if you are having your reception in a standard ballroom.****

Okay, with that now being said, here is a list of other tactics you can deploy to dress up your chairs.

1.)    Work with the color, style, and/or design – This is the cheapest and easiest thing you can do, barring that the chairs are in good condition without spots, tears or damage. However, it does require you to be flexible on your wedding color palette and overall theme. Banquet halls are notorious for having standard chairs many times in burgundy, blue or some other color. If you work with it, then it will look purposeful, not out of place, and not cost you a dime.

2.)    Signs  - You can easily and affordable create signs to hang from your chairs. Inexpensive frames, a postcard, printed pictures, or decorative paper hung from ribbon can be a stunning way to dress things up. You can personalize them for guests and then make them into favors. (Gotta LOVE a 2 for 1) Go the extra mile and frame out moss with a couple of colorful flowers for an amazing look.

3.)    Bows and Ribbons – this one is pretty self explanatory. Most brides wrap the chairs with a big ribbon bow made from satin or tulle. This can be very cost effective and that needed color punch for very little money. However, the newer trend (depending on your chair) is to hang color ribbons down from the top of the chair creating a cascading effect. Just as stunning, but more time consuming. So make sure you test how long it will take before the big day and a lot the needed time.

4.)    Floral Embellishments – adding flowers will really brighten up your seating. You can use floral garland for more drama or simply tie on an over sized flower bloom with ribbon. (Good choices for big blooms are gerbera daisies, hydrangeas and or peonies)

5.)    Chair Toppers & Fabric Swags – these can be made from fabric or ribbon. They can run the gambit in cost depending on what you choose. However, decorative cotton prints work great. (Order your fabric in bulk for more savings.) The other savings in this technique is that you use less fabric overall. You can make a little “hat” for the chair or simply wrap the top and then pin or tie it off and let the fabric hang down. To do the swag a long piece of fabric is looped around the top of the chair and weaved through the bottom and tied off.

METAL FOLDING CHAIRS - I want to spend another minute talking about metal folding chairs. Most rental companies have them, typically in brown, and though they are very cost effective (at under $2 each) they don’t really fit in to your wedding décor (unless you are having a rustic or natural look). They also have rounded tops, which makes chair covers and wrapping bows very difficult. So what do you do?

Well, you can opt to rent chair covers, designed for these types of chairs. Also, swagging fabric over the top and through the opening is very effective and in a bold color will complete remove your eye away for the chair and onto the decoration. If they are metal, use magnets to your advantage. You can “stick” on containers filled with flowers, or attach a sign, hang banners, or loop a flowering garland. (Just make sure that your magnet is strong enough to hold).

Don’t let your seating put in a décor frenzy. With these options those chairs will be magnificent.

So, if you are un-happy with the look of your chairs and want to dress them up with out breaking the bank, then deploy one of these inexpensive techniques. If you have other ideas or need more suggestion, please share them with me. Happy Planning.

"Be Wedding Fab-4-Less!"