Decorating the Wedding Venue

Some venues will allow you a completely free hand while others will be restrictive about where you can put flowers and what sort of lighting you can have. If you choose a romantic mediaeval castle, a few lilies and candles will probably be all it needs. But if your budget limits you to the local village hall, you'll might need to be more creative.

Flowers

You can't have too many flowers at a wedding, but they can be incredibly expensive. The bride's bouquet alone might cost between £50 and £100, so think carefully about what you want and whom you want to arrange them.

• See if you can bring some arrangements with you from the ceremony to the reception so that you get more value from them. You might even be able to hire green plants from the local nursery - it's worth a try.
• Use seasonal flowers - ask the florist what would be the best value for the time of year.
• Sometimes the colour is more important than the actual flowers in arrangements that will only be seen from a distance. You might be able to substitute cheaper ones (usually carnations and chrysanthemums) for more expensive ones.
• You can make a few flowers go a long way with lots of ribbon and greenery.
• If it's winter, especially around Christmas and New Year, think about using painted twigs and berries as well as plenty of holly and ivy.
• If you have access to large amounts of evergreen foliage, it can be an amazingly effective cover-up for a less than perfect venue - My son was lucky enough to be loaned a beautiful house in the Caribbean for his wedding but the owner failed to mention that major building works were being carried out at the time. It took three days of hard work by all the guests to scrub and rebuild and to connect up the electricity and gas and, one day before the wedding, there were still gaping holes in the masonry. Camouflage was the answer and a team of palm weavers moved in to create huge green panels which covered all the remaining gaps. It's amazing what you can do with a bit of greenery.

Candles and Fairy Lights

Next to flowers, it's lighting that turns an ordinary room into a romantic setting. If your reception will be held after dark, make an advance visit to see how the rooms are normally lit for a party. Then you can decide what you need to do to create the atmosphere you want. Talk to the premises manager about the effect you're hoping to achieve and see what's possible. If they specialise in wedding parties they will probably be able to help you decorate the room and set the tables to match your chosen theme.

Table Decorations

There is an almost infinite amount of stuff you can put on the table, from sparkling confetti, traditional bags of almonds for the guests, napkin bows, feathers and elaborate place cards to individual flower arrangements and tea lights. If you look at some of the pictures in the wedding magazines you will notice that there isn't much room for plates and knives and forks. If you enjoy that kind of detail you can have some fun with it. If you don't, simplicity could be your personal style statement.