Madeline is getting baptized this Sunday, so I have been planning her luncheon, which we will be hosting in our home. I tend to like things on the more formal side, however, I also always try to save money. :o) It is a difficult balance at times, but with enough planning, IT CAN BE DONE!!!! Whenever I am planning an event, I always look and see WHAT I HAVE before I go out and buy anything. Rather than planning my menu first, I tend to pull out my serving pieces, arrange them on a table in a way that I see fit, and THEN I plan the food. This might seem backwards, but I really think it helps with making sure everything fits on your table. If you don’t do this, then you may have to purchase extra tables and tablecloths at the last minute, which can be pricey. Tablecloths can be particularly expensive, so you definitely don’t want to have to continuously buy these! Planning your table can also prevent you from overbuying food, which will definitely save you money! 🙂
This week, I pulled out some of my silver and noticed that it definitely needed to be polished. I am glad that I did this early, because when I went and pulled out the jar, I noticed that I needed to go and purchase more. If I had waited until the night before, I would have been scrambling at the last minute worrying about finding polish. I hate doing things at the last minute. I think it adds a lot of unnecessary stress, which can in turn, can ruin the fun of the day. I like to do things early, so I can enjoy the preparation. 🙂
After the silver was polished, I was able to work on the flowers. We went to the grocery store and picked up a few bunches of white flowers. I will caution you about tulips – they are so pretty, but they fall. I took this picture to show you how badly they fell after about three hours. Luckily, my sweet husband had bought me white roses this week, so I am going to use them as filler material. I will post more pictures after they are completed. 🙂
I borrowed one of Madeline’s hat stands to put her bonnet on (I don’t want it to get wrinkled, so I am going to hold off on putting it out until after the ceremony). I also borrowed a picture frame from her room to display her ceremony invitation. I couldn’t see the point of buying extra supplies when I knew that I had them upstairs. :o) The white cross on the table was $0.99 on sale from Hobby Lobby. It was originally brown, so we painted it white. I thought it added a nice touch to the table and was super cheap. I also used a ton of my dishes that I received as wedding gifts, years ago. It is great having solid white dishes because you can use them for a variety of events!!! I think that everything on the buffet is going to be for the desserts, while the main table will have all of the regular food.
I also went and looked at my tablecloths in my storage area. My white tablecloth was too short for the table that we were using, but I did notice that I had a silver one from a Christmas dinner a few years back. I would have preferred white, however, I saw this as an opportunity to save money and went with the silver! :o) When you use a tablecloth, please don’t forget to iron it! Do not wait until the last minute, because it usually take a while, and that will add a lot of stress!!!!
After the tablecloth was ironed and the dishes were placed, I then turned to the menu planning. I always put little sticky notes on each serving piece to show where everything is going to go. I don’t want to give away too much, so this is all you get for now: 🙂
We have gone grocery shopping and are ready to go for Sunday!! 🙂
Want to see more info on Madeline’s big day??? Click here, here and here.
XOXO,
Tiffany
