The Empire Room

On Riverfront Boulevard

Archives for May 2016

Make the most of your Dallas wedding venue

Make the most of your Dallas Wedding Venue | The Empire Room

 

When your Dallas wedding venue includes a terrific view of the iconic city skyline, you’ve got to make the most of it!

  • Dallas-themed welcome bags: kick the party off right with Dallas-themed welcome bags placed in hotels rooms of traveling guests. You can include a list of favorite places to visit alongside other Dallas trinkets to thank out-of-town guests for their willingness to travel to your home city.
  • List attractions on your wedding website: give guests ideas of fun things to do in Dallas. This is a polite way to entertain out-of-towners and to spark fun activity for your wedding weekend. Select a few places you love most and include helpful website links to accommodate your guests.
  • Provide a Dallas-area scavenger hunt: Send guests who are seeking a weekend adventure on a scavenger hunt in the Dallas area. They’ll love getting to see the sights and engaging in a little friendly competition. Even born and bred Dallasites will get a kick out of this one! Don’t forget to give away a grand prize at the reception! (a dance with the lovely bride always goes over well).
  • Your Dallas love story: Did you fall in love here? Go on a first date? Get engaged? Share the details of your story with photos at the rehearsal dinner and reception. Your friends and family will love to see which city areas hold special importance to the happy couple.
  • Incorporate Dallas team pride: whether you’re a girl who never misses a Rangers game or a guy stuck in a love-hate relationship the Cowboys, consider adding a touch of your favorite team to the wedding. Grooms’ cakes are a fun place to show sport loyalty!
  • Dallas favors: when you send guests on their way, include a Dallas-themed favor. Graphic prints from Deep Ellum or framed maps of your neighborhood make for great keepsakes without going overboard on budget.

 

Lastly, don’t forget to soak up the view at The Empire Room! You and your guests will be swept away by our outdoor patio and stellar view of Downtown. We hope you’ll add a touch of native pride to your Dallas wedding venue here at The Empire Room.

Wedding Signage You’ll Love

Dallas Wedding Venues | The Empire Room

Dallas Styled Shoot Venue | The Empire Room

Photography by Taylor Lord

A huge trend in wedding décor right now, wedding signage is an easy way to inject personality into your ceremony and reception… not to mention it usually doubles as helpful information for guests. Where can you incorporate wedding signage into Dallas wedding venues? Take a look at a few of our favorites, which you can easily tweak to become a unique expression of your bridal style:

  • Welcome Sign: greet your guests at the entrance to your Dallas wedding venues with a welcome sign, hand-lettered to make a big statement. This personalized touch to your big day will go a long way in creating a “wow” moment for guests as they enter the reception. Make the look your own by choosing the medium: will you opt for white calligraphy on rustic wood? Or perhaps an antique mirror, hand-lettered with your monogram? Add personal details to take your welcome sign to the next level.
  • Directional Signage: Sometimes directional signage is a wedding day necessity… directing guests to restrooms or parking may not seem like an elegant detail of your special day, but it can become one! Have your calligrapher letter this signage to turn a blasé necessity into a charming décor element.
  • Seating Info: Whether you have guests pick up delicately calligraphed individual cards, or find their table number on a massive mirror hand-lettered with guests’ names, the seating information can easily become a memorable décor focal point. Ask your calligrapher for ideas if you’re stumped on creative ways to pull this off.
  • Menu: Menus have become increasingly personalized over the last few years. We’ve seen calligraphers write on just about anything, from daintily deckled cotton paper to modern clear acrylic plates and everything in between… including entire menus lettered on large cacti! You can get incredibly unique with your menu design, so be sure to brainstorm unique ways to make this element a statement piece at your reception.
  • Vows: We love when couples have their vows lettered before the big day. Place them in frames on the welcome table, or have them lettered large-scale as a backdrop to the site of your “I do.” We’ve even seen vows written on fabric and used as personalized aisle runners. An extra bonus to having your vows lettered? They make a lovely keepsake for the newlywed couple to feature in their new home together.
  • Sweetheart Table: Check out our last post on why a sweetheart table really is a must-have at your wedding reception… and then deck it out with personalized signage attached to the bride and groom’s chairs. We love seeing “Mr. and Mrs.” signs affixed to their chairs with gorgeous ribbons. And it only gets even better when the newlyweds inject more personality into this signage! Use song lyrics from the couple’s first dance, or lines from a poem that has meaning for the couple. Guests are sure to love this customized décor element, and it will make for amazing photo opportunities.

Where do you envision signage for your big day? We’d love to hear your ideas! Incorporating calligraphy into your wedding signage is a terrific way to transform informational necessities into swoon-worthy details you and your guests will treasure. Let us know if we can help you with ideas for making our modern venue your own one-of-a-kind space. As one of the top Dallas wedding venues, we are happy to offer our expertise in any way that helps you execute your dream day!

What is a sweetheart table and why do you need one?

Seating arrangements at wedding receptions are always tricky. Whether you agonize over a carefully planned chart, or open up the floor to unrestricted seating, deciding on the floor plan layout is no easy feat. Wedding trends are always bringing novel ideas to the overall layout of the reception…  lately at our DFW modern wedding venue, we’ve been seeing a lot of one trend we absolutely love: sweetheart tables!

DFW modern wedding venue | The Empire Room

Fine Art Photographer Taylor Lord

A sweetheart table is a small (typically rectangular) table for just the bride and groom. Often placed at the front of the venue, the sweetheart table is a special spot just for the two newlyweds, while everyone else sits at the usual tables. Why do we recommend them? There’s a lot to love!

  • A moment of privacy: a table reserved just for the happy couple ensures a rare moment of privacy for the newlyweds. The bride and groom can enjoy dinner together and savor a moment just for the two of them.
  • Easier host/essing: some couples add two empty chairs on the opposite side of the bride and groom’s seats at the sweetheart table. This allows guests to stop by the sweetheart table to visit, preventing the bride and groom from having to make rounds to greet each guest individually.
  • Unique table décor: since the sweetheart table is the focal point of the layout, you can go all-out on décor for just this table. Incorporate a personal detail (like china from the mothers of the bride and groom), or an oversized lush floral arrangement.
  • Price conscious: decorating the sweetheart table works in favor of your budget. Splurge on the sweetheart table, but keep the other tablescapes simple and sweet (and budget-friendly).
  • Photo opportunties: your splendidly decked out sweetheart table is the perfect opportunity to snap some styled photos. Incorporate any special details, like your custom invitation suite or a hand-lettered menu. This is a great opportunity to capture the best of your wedding!

A sweetheart table can help solve a few seating puzzles by designating a focal point for the room and giving the newlyweds a seat where they don’t appear to play favorites among guests. It’s the best of both worlds, providing a picturesque tablescape and space for the new Mr. and Mrs. to enjoy a moment together. Consider adding one to your DFW modern wedding venue at The Empire Room!

Our versatile floor plan can accommodate almost any seating layout, with or without a sweetheart table. Just let us know how we can help with your wedding ceremony and rehearsal seating—we’ve done this a few times, and we would be glad to assist you.

Mom’s Wedding Trends

We hope everyone had a wonderful time honoring their moms yesterday! We have to admit, after seeing all that our couples’ mothers do during the wedding planning process, we think mamas everywhere deserve way more than a single day of celebration. This occasion has us thinking back to mom’s wedding day.. meaning (for most newlyweds at our unique Dallas wedding venue), back in the ’80s. We won’t pretend we miss the big hair and pouf sleeves, but there are some ’80s trends that have made a comeback at modern weddings. What was Mom wearing then, and which ’80s trends are we wearing now? Check out which wedding styles were in vogue back in the era of leotards and scrunchies:

  • Big hair: the bigger the better! Teased curls and mile-high bangs were all the rage in the 1980s. We don’t foresee this trend making a comeback amidst today’s blowouts and messy-chic braids, but it’s pretty entertaining to look back on over-the-top ’80s ‘dos.
  • Puffy sleeves: again, bigger was better for the quintessential ’80s sleeves! Thanks to Princess Di’s trendsetting wedding gown, brides everywhere sought out silky poufs to carry down the aisle on their shoulders. Most modern brides have ditched these billowing attachments in favor of more streamlined gowns, whether sleeved or strapless.
  • Sleeved gowns: long-sleeved gowns (a la Princess Di) were reinvented for the modern era with Kate Middleton’s unforgettably timeless dress. Her wedding style set the tone for this generation’s picture of the perfect gown, with dainty lace detail and a sophisticated silhouette.
  • Cascading flowers: tumbling flowers cascading from a full bouquet down the length of the gown were certainly in style in the 1980s… and they’re making a comeback in a big way! We’re seeing more and more brides putting a modern twist on this dated look with oversized bouquets, wrapped in cascading ribbons and decked with organic greens.
  • Long veils: in the ’80s, a long veil was the perfect complement to those poufed bangs and massive shoulder pads; nowadays, veils are much more personal. Today’s brides may have long sweeping veils, or opt for natural blooms tucked into a braid instead of tulle. Though veils vary from person to person, over-the-face veils have faded in the modern era; most modern brides choose veils pinned only to the crown of the head.
  • Flower crowns: floral crowns are hugely in trend these days, but their predecessor was prevalent in the ’80s! While today’s brides usually craft organic flower crowns out of oversized blooms or dainty wildflowers, brides in the ’80s often added white silk flower crowns to their teased locks and long veils.
  • Colorful bridesmaids: we’re sure you’ve seen some of the “nightmare” bridesmaid dresses from the ’80s… however, today’s common bridesmaid dress choices are reflective of ’80s style! We’ve dropped puffy sleeves and stuffy fabric for modern silhouettes, but the colors of the ’80s are sneaking back into modern wedding style. Baby blues and blush pinks are back in vogue, while pastel hues in general are making a big comeback.
  • Baby’s breath: a classic ’80s floral choice, tucked into a dozen pink roses, baby’s breath was a staple in the past… but we’re seeing its resurgence in modern weddings. Instead of incorporating baby’s breath into formal flowers, today’s brides are using it as an accent to unstructured, organic bouquets bursting with personality.

It turns out that the 1980s and the 2010s have more in common than you might think! Today’s brides are constantly personalizing their weddings to be unique occasions, but it’s clear that on the grand scale, ’80s trends have found their way into modern wedding style. Take this Mother’s Day as an excuse to look back on Mom’s wedding photos. You might get a good laugh from that big hair… or you may find unexpected inspiration!

We love to see how every bride makes overarching trends her own at our unique Dallas wedding venue. Bring Mom and your creative vision to our venue so we can talk about bringing your ideas to life at The Empire Room.

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7,500 square feet of stunning indoor event space for your wedding day, special event or corporate gathering.
20 years of experience

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call 972-900-5500 email Sales@TheEmpireRoomDallas.com
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1225 N. Riverfront Boulevard
Dallas, TX 75207