This is one of the highlights of my setup for the party, the Guest Frame area. Traditionally, guests sign up in a guestbook located at entrance of the reception. Now, there are lots of creative ways to welcome your guests. A guest frame is a popular alternative for guest book. It is a frame with a little photo of the couple, some text, and a big space where guests can leave their messages or wishes.

Today, we are not limited to guest books and frames, we can spice up the start of the wedding reception with some nice activities for the guests. Here in the Philippines, we always expect people to come an hour late during parties and some will come just in time or earlier. So while waiting for the other guests, you can provide cocktails and make a band to play nice music. You can also setup a photobooth and give them more activities in the guest area.

For my party, I decided to make a DIY Guest Tree. It is an unfinished artwork where every guest can help finish it. The frame has an image of a tree without leaves. A palette with paints of different colors is provided beside the frame. Using the paint, guests will have to press their thumbprints on to the artwork. Their fingerprint will serve as a leaf and every guest will contribute their piece of leaf until the whole tree is filled. They should also sign below the fingerprint or give their wishes around the tree. It is a work in progress and it will only be completed by the guests until the end of the event.

I bought a nice wooden frame painted in gold. My cousin made the design of the tree and i hand-painted it on to the paper. The paper we used is a beige cartolina-sized special paper with a nice texture. The text and pattern for the ground is digitally printed. I cut it into shape and pasted it on the paper before painting the tree. I also made an infographic instruction so guest will know what to do. So here is the final look of the "Guest tree".



Finally, I decorated the guest frame area with lots of vintage stuff like pocket books, little clocks, paper cars and my dad's collection of nozzles and fireman snowglobe. We also clipped old photos with wooden pegs in abaca rope. The little posts were borrowed from our friend, Gerry DCarpio, who is also an event coordinator/stylist. We hand made the paper vintage cars using the templates we found in the internet. There is also a candy jar with peppermint candies we bought in La Tienda. A Check out more photos below.



Credits to Ryann Elumba (Seed Interactive Multimedia Production) for the photography, and me for the editing. I couldn't have done these without my dearest brothers and our cousin Wella, and her boyfriend, Lance. :D Thanks guys! Do check out the rest of the details of Project Red Party here.

Here's another essential part of event styling, the Centerpiece. My inspiration for the centerpiece are the beautiful skylines of New York. Since the tables of the reception are small, we have to create a small but elegant centerpiece without too much expense. It's all DIY here :D Here is the final look of the skyline silhouette centerpiece.



The centerpiece is made of black special board paper and we cut out the windows and shape of the buildings. A candle illuminates inside so the windows glow like the buildings at night. We also embellished the inside of the buildings with crystal stickers so when you peep inside you can see the sparkling details. Aside from the skyline cutout, we also made card numbers. It's made of white specialty board paper. I made the design in photoshop inspired by musical symbols and floral patterns. We printed it in the back side of the board paper and carefully cut them out. To put some color, we used the excess doodle pattern from the invitations. We placed them inside but not directly on the backside of the cut-out so there will be depth. You can slightly see the shadow of the cutout in the pattern when light hits it. Here's how our card numbers look like.

 

I love how the light casts through the window on the table! In addition, I also borrowed wooden decorative furnishings and little lamp post candle holders by Gerry DCarpio of GDC Events. Thanks so much Sir Gerry! :D You can also see the specially packaged sparklers that was used during the program. Finally, we added more candles and glasses, and sprinkled the table with sweet delights.

Thanks to my brothers, Mark and Aljo, and Wella and Lance. I couldn't have done these without your help!