Event Venue, Wedding Reception, Wedding Venue
Let’s face it. Planning a wedding ceremony and reception is hard! This is a lifechanging event and it needs to be perfect, right? The pressure is on!
So, here are five wedding trends to help you inspire your creative side. Incorporate some or all of these ideas and they will lead you to an amazing wedding.
1. Sustainable & Eco-Friendly Weddings
In the 2020s it is all about sustainability! This year is no different.
Impress your friends and family with numerous ecofriendly choices. Start by using biodegradable décor, decorations, and have plant-based catering for your luncheon or dinner.
Tackle one of the biggest wastes of money and resources – wedding invitations! This can be not only more efficient but it saves a lot of carbon: Go digital with wedding invitations. It is so much easier for you to manage your guest list and there is no paper used, no mail trucks driving around delivering them, etc.
For the wedding ceremony, choose a sustainable locale like a public botanical garden, a vineyard or a nature center. Your guests will love you for it and so will Mother Earth.
2. High-Tech & AI-Integrated Weddings
Maximize on tech to really do your wedding right. For instance, if one guest is going to miss the wedding due to illness. Live stream the wedding for them. Guests who really wanted to attend but now they can’t, will love a live stream to watch. Kick it up a notch and add some virtual reality! Now we’re talkin’!
3. Maximalist Decor & Statement Pieces
This year, going bold and over-the-top with décor is what’s in! Is an Elizabethan wedding theme in your future? Big hair, humungous dresses and gawdy overdone décor! Have fun with doing and overdoing an unforgettable, dramatic ceremony and reception experience.
4. Unique & Interactive Guest Experiences
Have your wedding a guest-facing great time. No more just sit and watch. Let them have fun playing bartender for a few minutes at the DIY cocktail bar, take Karaoke to new levels as guests provide the entertainment. Add a photobooth that has an augmented reality upgrade to raise the level of fun and hilarity.
Of course, the dining needs to be handled by the caterer, but a DIY omlet bar let’s guess have fun playing around with crazy mixes of ingredients.
5. Non-Traditional Wedding Attire & Fashion Statements
Have everyone join in the fun of a crazy DIY designer outfit for your wedding. Mix Plaids and stripes, wear oversized bows and bowties, datable sleeves, 1960s long gloves and pillbox hats. Are suits with sneakers back yet??
Contact us at Villa Ragusa to discuss booking your classic or going all out wedding reception.
Wedding Reception, Wedding Venue
These websites should make it so easy to just jump in and start planning your wedding ceremony and reception. They’ll let you know the things you need to know and give you loads of brilliant ideas.
- Style Me Pretty
- This is a blog that is dedicated to you and your soon to be spouse. There are numerous sections to explore on every topic that is important when planning your nuptials and afterparty. And there are loads of images, too! You can’t have too many pics!
- 100 Layer Cake
- This blog will keep you in style, because who needs accidental early 1970s puffy sleeves? Aside from current wedding fashions, they have very helpful blog posts on numerous related subjects.
- Preowned Wedding Dresses
- Once the shock of the prices on brand new wedding dresses wears off, go to this website and browse some pre-owned dresses. This might be just the ticket to you’re your wedding under budget.
- Once Wed
- This Instagram account is loaded with so many gorgeous wedding pics. It’ll get your ideas flowing while you scroll there for a while.
- Wedding Wire
- This wedding website gives you super helpful stuff. One thing in particular you’ll need is a wedding website! They show you where to go. And there are many vendor links to help you plan.
- Ruffled Blog
- The Ruffled Blog is big on wedding themes. If you don’t have your heart set on a theme just yet, browse their theme categories. You be creatively inspired instantaneously.
The Best Venue
Of course, the best wedding venue in Silicon Valley is going to be Villa Ragusa! Our helpful staff will even give some suggestions they know work very well for weddings. Give us a call to schedule an appointment. Be sure to ask about our discounted dates! (408) 364-1900
Event Planning, Event Venue, Wedding Reception
This is the second in our series of slashing the costs of your wedding and reception. You can find part one here.
- Trim the Guest List
- This is the hardest thing to do, but the fact of the matter is that a whopping 25% of your list is not going to show up, even though they sent an RSVP. That is 25% of your dinner costs, wedding reception favors, seating costs, invitations, etc. So, make sure you focus the invites for the people who are vested in showing up – like family and very close friends.
- Get Creative with Food Costs
- Buffets are the usual way to slash the food budget, but they are still very expensive. The food is usually very good still. But you can do even better with a theme wedding.
Book a food truck for your wedding. If you’re having a traditional Mexican wedding, have a Mexican food truck at your outdoor wedding! Guests can order exactly what they like and it fits perfectly with your theme. Food trucks are super popular these days and there are so many ethnic choices. It should be easy matched to your wedding theme.
- Go Eco-Friendly with Flowers
- There is another way to use a florist – get their flower petal scraps to use instead of throwing rice!
For decorating tables flowers are flowers. You might want red roses on the wedding couple’s table. For the rest of the tables go with hand-picked wildflowers from your favorite meadow. You can pick them a day or two before the wedding and keep them in buckets of water. Wildflowers are just as beautiful and they set a more natural look.
- Forget About Typical Party Favors
- Sadly, many guests leave favors behind—so skip them and have edible options like pretty packaged cookies, fine chocolates or even homemade jams.
Villa Ragusa is Here to Help
Be sure to ask us about how to save on our inhouse catering and booking dates! We give large discounts for our typically show times on the schedule. Talk to our Event Coordinator today.
Social Hall, Wedding Reception, Wedding Venue
Your wedding ceremony and reception are the biggest days in your life for you and your beloved. You are full of excitement but be aware of one thing. This day is going to be extremely stressful until the event begins. But it doesn’t have to be horrific.
For this article we will focus on the wedding reception.
Some Tips from Insider Experts
Here are some tips from wedding planners and other insiders who make a living planning and hosting wedding receptions.
- 1. Choosing the Right Venue
- The built-in amenities can make or break an event like a wedding reception. Look for an event that offers its own catering, has outstanding décor and event coordinators to help you along the way.
- 2. Hire an Event Coordinator for the Day of the Event.
- An event coordinator who is there for the day of your reception will be a real lifesaver. You can have a friend do this for you, but a friend doesn’t necessarily know all of the things that are important to check on. A pro will also know how to quickly turn around a potential disaster into an unnoticeable hiccup.
- 3. Have a Realistic Timeline
- When you’re planning your events within the event, be sure to add plenty of buffer time. You know Uncle Leo and how he tends go on and on with his toasts! It is best to have extra time planned after every planned activity. It can take 15 minutes to get everyone’s attention sometimes, too!
- 4. Focus on What Truly Matters
- Everyone is going to throw at you so many fun ideas that you’ll want to include them all. But unless this is an old fashioned 3-day Polish wedding, you have to consider the time involved. So, you must choose which activities are truly the most important and stick with those.
Use an On-Site Event Coordinator
At Villa Ragusa we have an on-site event coordinator that is happy to help you with many tasks. She can steer you clear of common problems and ensure your wedding reception is fun, memorable and problem-free.
Event Planning, Wedding Reception, Wedding Venue
For most couples there isn’t any reason to overspend on their wedding. You really can get more for less. Then you’ll be able to spend the most on what matters the most, like your Honeymoon!
Here are Some Ways to Cut the Fat from Your Wedding
- Off-Peak Wedding Reception Date
- Venues and vendors often offer discounts for weekday or off-season weddings. And you can sometimes add an afternoon or brunch wedding to reduce the cost even further.
- DIY Invitations & Décor
- You can make your own invitations and save $100s or even $1000s, depending on how elaborate the invitations are. So, save the environment and go digital. You can design your gorgeous wedding invitations using an online tool and print them or send them digitally. A company like Evite can also track your RSVPs and keep your wedding on track.
- Rent or Buy a Pre-Owned Wedding Dress
- Aside from your rings, the wedding dress is a huge expenditure. And a wedding dress is something you’ll wear only once and then you’ll keep it in storage for the rest of your life. Sure, possibly your future daughter might want to use it, but if you’re not buying a well-crafted top of the line dress, it is not likely to hold up.
There are budget options like borrowing from a wedding dress collection your church curates for brides of all ages. You will give the organization a donation. This will save you $1000s!
Or you can buy a used dress from a former bride who is selling hers – then donate it back to her after the wedding. Now it is “something borrowed”!
Villa Ragusa is Here to Help
Our Event Coordinators are here to help you with a beautiful location for your wedding and reception. We have rooms that can fit less than 200 or up to 800 guests. If you’re having a tight budget wedding, we give generous discounts on typically slow times on our calendar. Be sure to ask us about when to book your event.
Event Planning, Wedding Reception, Wedding Venue
Hiring a wedding planner sounds like an unnecessary expense, but actually, they might save your sanity as well as your relationship.
Weddings! Yikes!
Wedding ceremonies and receptions are chaotic to plan. They are expensive. You will feel like this is the most important decision in your life so you must get every single thing perfect. But you don’t have to get everything absolutely perfect.
So, here is how you get it done right.
Hire a Wedding Planner
Planning a wedding is something that is not as fun as you thought it was. Actually, it is a bit of a nightmare. Every person you know, and some you have never met before in your life, will tell you exactly what you need to do. To make matters worse, if you don’t do it the way they want you to do it they’ll be hurt. If you hurt a stranger’s feelings, that’s sad. But when it is Grandma. Oh, boy.
The way around the nightmare is to hire a wedding planner. This is a person who knows wedding ceremonies and receptions like nobody else. Your planner will tell you about things you never heard of before. This is a person who has a list and asks you many questions. Then sketches it all out, gets your approval, makes adjustments, lines up vendors and boom! Your wedding is done. Haha, not quite.
Tragedy Strikes
Your planner will probably warn you that always, always, always something will go horribly wrong! Your 6″ shoe heel will break off just before going down the aisle. Your caterer made the wrong menu. It rained and your back up place is locked – you and 500 guests can’t get in! There is always some tragedy that happens. But when you hire a wedding planner they jump right in, wave a magic wand over every single incident and save the day.
You won’t even know all that your wedding planner is doing for you because they take care of things and tell you later – after your big day.
It is the wedding planner’s duty to save the day – over and over – shielding you from all of it. And they keep Aunty Alice and your soon-to-be mother-in-law muted. That is worth every penny you paid right there.
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