Guests Taking Reception Decorations?

If you have one or two pictures in the center of a table as a centerpiece I`d be surprised if your guests would think they are for them to take home. Although stranger things have been known to happen.

Are you planning to do favors for your guests? If you are, then you can place them by their place setting so that they know THAT is for them to take home and not the pictures.

Even if you don`t do favors I really don`t think your guests will think they can take the pictures home with them, especially if they are in a ncie frame.

What you could do if you`re really concerned is have your personal attendant, or a family member, keep an eye on the pictures and if someone picks one up and tries to leave with it, they could politely tell them that it`s not a souvenir of your wedding.

Good luck and best wishes.

We had a disposable camera on each table. One of my relatives decided to pocket it, & when challenged by his wife, airily remarked that he had better uses for it at home!

The moral: don`t be sanguine regarding either your guests` understanding (of what is where & for what purpose) or their ethics.

By the way, a recent trend of professional thieves has been to rob reception gift-tables that are left unguarded. Today, too, are thieves who read newspapers & wedding websites for wedding-date info, aware that houses of immediate family & guests will likely be unoccupied during that time. (Sigh!)

Bonnie

This happened at my wedding and now I am planning my daughters. The centerpieces of the tables were a bud vase with rose buds, that the florist had supplied. Well, my husband`s relatives thought that they could take them! He had to head them off at the door. So I would be careful as to what you put out. Maybe designate a friend or two to watch for things being taken. It is a shame that these things hapen, but they do.

Have your family and friends watch out for your things.at my sisters wedding,people were taking her table centerpieces and someone even stole over $500.00 that they had received the minute they put it on a table. It is such a sad thing to do to newly weds but some people are heartless. I am getting maried soon and will be putting out expensive thing which i will want back so i have already asked my family and friends to keep an eye out. Good luck

Thanks for the warning ladies, I had forgotten that aspect. I am giving away the Decorations. I do have other gits for everyone but I don`t want to take all the centerpieces home either. I am hand beading glass hurricane lamps. I am taking several large gift bags I got at the dollar store and handing them out during the reception. I will say that we had a silent raffle for them. Then those people will know what to take home. I will announce this early on. Maybe you should do the same. It may sound tacky but at least you will not have anything missing. Tell everyone that the decorations are part of your home decor and that you wanted to share it with them, but you need them back so if anyone can help you load the car later that would be great. That way it is done in a tactful mannor and no one should walk off with things. Heck, you might even get help packing up.

Personally, I don`t have enough to go around but I do have about 40 things to give out and I am sure people will think this is a nice idea. That I want them to take it home and share with us.

I am also using cameras and I will ask that when they are full to please return them to the head table. That way I can keep track of them.

Short of posting a guard, and I just may do that.

Thanks again and best of luck

Wow, maybe I`m just naive, but I could never see any of my family or friends doing anything like this. But then again everyone`s family is different. And unfortunately there are always those few people who can spoil the whole bunch. My feeling is, if you are worried this will happen then you probably have a good reason for worrying because you know the people you are inviting, there are other options for displaying the same things but in a way that you wouldn`t be too worried about it if someone took it. If you look around places you can often find cheap frames that are just as nice and you could get color copies of your pictures and put them in the cheaper frames and if you did it right you wouldn`t lose the niceness of your originals but you also wouldn`t be putting something that is so precious to you out on the table where it could easily be taken. (another way of dealing with the pictures is to scan them and then you can go to walmart.com and they have a photo section of their website where you can upload your photos and edit them or whatever you want and then you can order photo-quality prints done on photo paper and pick them up at your local store or even just have them sent directly to you). Anyway, just an idea for you to ponder.

I don`t know. Some people will take just about anything. If you don`t want to lose it, then don`t take it there and put it on the tables.