Month: September 2012

MAKE YOUR OWN GRANOLA WEDDING TABLE

Are you a fan of the candy bag buffet tables where you fill a bag as a party favor, but don’t want to promote the high-caloric intake?

Here is a healthy and tasty twist on a familiar wedding favor idea to the candy bar buffet you see at many trendy weddings today; The Do-It-Yourself Trail Mix Wedding Buffet Bar!

It’s a great idea that kills two birds with one stone; Place Cards & Party Favors…

You simply use mason jar lids as your table place cards that show your guests to their seats & a “Do-It-Yourself Trail Mix Buffet Bar” that uses the lids again later, to top mason jars in order to save the guests’ crunchy creations!

That’s right! The guests save their place card, wondering what it is for. Then, by the end of the wedding it all makes sense! Fun right? Kind of like an Episode of LOST, but with the payoff!

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN TRAIL MIX BAG WEDDING STATION

It isn’t difficult at all. The only difference over using candy and candy bags is how you would like to package your granola. Here is how it works in 10 easy steps to granola goodness…

STEP 1 – CREATE MASON JAR LIDS FOR PLACE CARDS

1) Buy a bunch of mason jars at the dollar store, or craft shop.

2) Decorate the lids, with ribbons or paint to taste. You can decorate the lids with ribbons, tags, paint, lace, decals, stamps or anything you can imagine to help customize the feel you are looking for and harness your personalities.

3) Write your wedding date and the bride & groom’s names on the top of each one of the lids.

4) On the inside of each lid, write the names of each one of your guests, along with their assigned seating table numbers. You do this just the same as you would on a printed table place card.

5) Decoratively lay out the lids on a table by where the guests will enter your reception. Use the jar lids as your table place cards to direct your wedding guests to their seats.

6) Create a sign instructing the guests that they must save their lids for later.  Not telling the people why they are saving the lids may build up an anticipation for when you open the trail mix bar for business later on.

STEP 2 – GUESTS MAKE CUSTOM TRAIL MIX – STORING IN MASON JARS WITH LID PLACE CARDS

7) Purchase and stock pile mass quantities of all of your favorite trail mix ingredients. Check online for places to save when buying all your great nuts, grains, dried fruits and more!

8 ) After the wedding dinner, roll out your own “Do-It-Yourself Trail Mix” buffet table.

9) Provide the empty mason jars in a basket, as the “take out” bags for the guests to store their custom trail mix concoctions in.

10) Have your DJ announce and explain details on the trail mix bar. Tell the guests to use the lids from their place cards to store their custom trail mix in the jars, and to attack!

TRAIL MIX BAR & PLACE CARD IDEA GALLERY

Have fun with this idea! The possibilities are endless. Here are some pictures that I took at a recent wedding where they did this activity with great success, along with some other sample pictures to help get your granola juices flowing.

Enjoy and happy “trails” to you! 

This weekend, I had the pleasure of being the disc jockey at a fun wedding at Key Hall at Proctors of Schenectady NY. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this venue, it is conveniently located to the left of Proctor’s on State Street in downtown Schenectady, NY.

This hall is the former Key Bank who many may remember as being decked out in stone and marble flooring, now making an interesting backdrop for weddings and other events, alike.

For this particular wedding of about 100 guests or so, the front of the hall was curtained off to provide accommodations for a cozy ceremony. After the ceremony, the chairs are lifted and shifted back to the tables and the cocktail hour is ready to go.

Comfortably seating 200 guests for a sit-down dinner at Key Hall at Proctors, this hall is somewhat narrow, but is still very spacious. There is also a nice bar in the opposite corner of where the ceremony was set.

The food was great! The caterers had four different stations featuring a carving station, a pasta station, a nice buffet selection, and a hamburger slider table with homemade milkshakes to order.

If you are thinking about booking this hall for your wedding, the high ceilings and the original vaults from the old-fashioned bank make for some great picture opportunities, as well.

The acoustics are quite a bit tricky in this hall, but can be dealt with. I have found that an L1 Model2 BOSE System (not a model 1) is ideal to use for this venue. The Model 2 may be the best option for sound, due to the stone walls making it kind of gymnasium-like. Therefore, if you are looking at this hall, you may want to see if the BOSE L1 Model 2 is an option from your DJ.

This particular BOSE system (L1 Model2) has many, many small speakers (rather than one large one) that are tilted in many different directions and aligned into a sound bar-like position. This enables the speakers to send out a blanket of sound waves further at lower levels. This means you don’t have to crank the sound very loud to reach the back of the hall. What your DJ should probably do is turn the bass down a bit, as well, so that it doesn’t echo too much, as the acoustics in this hall will accentuate the bass that is already there.

In the end, Key Hall at Proctors is a good option where you can have your ceremony, cocktail hour and reception all in the same place.

Here is a fun idea… At a recent wedding at Moscatiello’s Family Italian Restaurant, 99 North Greenbush Road Troy, NY, the guests were provided with a bunch of ribbons attached to sticks.

Prior to the official wedding party entrance, the audience was instucted to shake the tassels at their seats, as the bride and groom entered the reception.

Upon the official entrance of the newlyweds at Moscatiello’s of North Greenbush, each place setting lighted up in color.

The bridal party intro scene at Moscatiello’s Family Italian Restaurant, (99 North Greenbush Road in Troy, NY) was vibrant and full of spirit, reminding me of a fan-crazed sporting event, not unlike that of a celebratory Brazilian Soccer game. Good show!

Another idea is to use the sticks instead of the rice tossing tradition that is often practiced just before the receiving line is put together, immediately following the ceremony.

Below are a few pictures of what party decoration web sites refer to as “ribbon sticks” or “ribbon wands.” The images below can possibly give you an idea of how ribbon sticks might look at your wedding…