MODULE 4: ORGANIZING A WEDDING RECEPTION

As important as the wedding ceremony is, the reception is the event that will take the most planning, time and, of course, budget!
There are many different types of receptions, most of them involving a combination of a few key elements: food, drink, dancing speeches, rituals such as bouquet tossing and cake cutting, receiving line or introductions.

There are as many possible variations on receptions as there are brides – some prefer a morning reception with a brunch and speeches, with no alcohol; others (the majority) prefer an afternoon or evening reception.

Because there is no one ‘typical’ reception, what we will provide here is a general overview of what goes into planning a reception, and you can adapt, add or subtract to suit the vision of your bride and groom.

We will discuss:

• Choosing a venue to hold a wedding reception, as an appropriate venue is vitally important to the success of the event.
• Preparing for the reception. Once the venue has been chosen, your role may include negotiating the contract, as well as supervising all arrangements for the reception.
• Creating a wedding theme and a mood board. You use the mood or inspiration board to look at on a regular basis, to draw inspiration from, to make choices on the suppliers and theming, and colour decisions of products ordered for the wedding.
• Reception decoration and styling, including centrepieces, table scape, chair embellishment, floral styling, wedding draping, and lighting.
• Room layout and floor plan, which you will use to show all suppliers and staff what equipment will be used for the event, and how the furniture and equipment will be positioned. It will show the flow of guests, different event sections, and show seating.
• Food and beverage selection. Usually the bride and groom and their parents will select the menu choices for the reception meals, and will also select the type of wines to be served from the bar, but occasionally the bride and groom may request a custom menu or custom sides to a menu selection, so you may have to communicate between the chef and client to work out a mutual agreement.
• Thank you novelties, standard tokens of appreciation by the bride and groom to their guests.

At the end of the module you will find your assignments for the module, which are required for your certification.