Many traditions in this day and age have been abandoned. This has occurred for a variety of reasons. One of the traditions that is a hallmark of days gone by, and not that long ago, is the engagement announcement event.
In many ways, this is a tradition that warrants being revived. If you have become engaged to your significant other, or if you both are contemplating this “important move,” you may want to give serious consideration to having an engagement announcement event.
There are a number of decisions that need to be made for an engagement announcement. This includes everything from invitations to the tablescape. Here are some thoughts and strategies you will want to consider as you ponder the tablescape for your engagement announcement.
Consider Your Head Table
You can make an engagement announcement a bit more formal by having a “head table.” This is a table at which the couple making the engagement announcement sit, together with their parents. If the maid of honor and best man have been selected at this juncture, they can also join the head table.
One way in which you can make the head table really shine is the addition of silver pieces. If the announcement will include a meal, the dinnerware itself is likely to naturally contribute to the addition of silver to the head table tablescape.
You can also add other items made of silver as part of the design for the head table. These can include petit silver bells (which you possibly can take from a box storing your Christmas decorations).
A Seasonal Tablescape
An idea that you will want to bear in mind for your tablescape is to utilize seasonal themes. Although a significant percentage of marriages occur in the spring and summer months in North America and Europe, engagements occur throughout the year.
If an engagement announcement event is planned during the wintertime holiday season, you can utilize the decorations you already have in place. You can add some additional bits and pieces to tie these decorations into themes of love and marriage. Evergreen adorned with red hearts and silver bells is both well aligned with the winter holiday season and yet tied in nicely with an engagement announcement.
Spring and summer open the doors to a lovely seasonal tablescape that features brilliant fresh flowers, perhaps even from your own garden. You can make the tablescape stylish and elegant by adding silver pieces into the mix of spring blossoms. For example, you can place spring flowers in silver vases and other types of containers.
Nuptial Themes and Your Tablescape
Of course, you can always fall back on old fashioned nuptial themes for the tablescape at an engagement announcement event. Oftentimes, these types of decorations hearken to a wedding celebration itself.
A newly engaged couple might want to give hints of what the wedding celebration itself will be like. For example, the color scheme intended for the wedding can be introduced for the first time at an engagement announcement event.
Lively, Celebratory Tablescape
An engagement announcement can be a truly lively party. The tablescape associated with a bright celebration can match its town with relative easy.
When an event is intended to be a true celebration, none other than Martha Stewart has been suggesting people consider incorporating neon colors into the event’s associated tablescape.
Food and Drink at an Engagement Announcement Event
A small number of people who do have an engagement announcement event host a formal dinner. Of course, this is a perfectly acceptable and wholly traditional engagement announcement function. Nonetheless, a majority of people take a less formal course.
A relaxed, casual way of announcing an engagement at a meal is to have a buffet and a bartender. If you go the buffet route, you can get the event catered at a price that will not break the budget. In addition, a bartending service can be added to the announcement, also without costing a proverbial arm and leg.
Invitations
Yes, we live in an age in which evites are the common way of inviting people to all manner of events. Thankfully, evites have not replaced traditional wedding invitations — at least not yet.
Although evites are convenient, even nicely designed in many instances, give serious through to going the traditional route and use snail mail to invite guests to your engagement announcement event.
Sending out “real world” invitations does take more time, does cost more money. Nonetheless, there is something personal and lovely about inviting people to your engagement function in this manner.
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Jessica Kane is a writer for Silver Superstore, home of the internet’s best flatware.
