Tea Themed Wedding Reception Ideas

[Anonymous]

Some of you already know this… but I recently got engaged to my wonderful boyfriend of 4.5 years.  We plan to get married next September.

I am not exactly a girly-girl and I don’t have any close girl friends, so planning this wedding has been difficult.  However, I have always known that I wanted to give tins of tea as wedding favors…. and then I started thinking about doing the entire reception with a tea theme.

We want to have the wedding during the early afternoon… around 1:30pm or 2:30pm… with the reception immediately following.  This way we could have a reception based on the “afternoon tea” theme.  No worries, I have already ran this idea past the fiancee and he says it is cool.

So here is where you come in.  I need help with ideas!

1) We are on a limited budge.  I am really trying to keep the cost to under $5,000.
2) Like I said above, I am not a girly-girl… so no lace, no pastel colors, no frilly hats, etc.
3) I know I want bold colors, but I am not sure what colors would go with a tea theme…
4) What kind of food to serve?  We want to do an afternoon reception to cut down the cost of having to serve dinner to our guests.  This way we can do the “cocktails and appetizers” thing or, in this case, the “tea and sandwiches” thing.
5) The above raises the question of how to serve tea.  Do we have already steeped tea in huge teapots and have them get it buffet style?  Do we put hot water and – dare I say – tea bags on each table? Or what?
6) What kind(s) of tea to serve?  The traditional four?  Maybe some funky flavored teas?
7) What about the decor and center pieces?  Again, not too girly and not too expensive.

I should probably mention that this will be a small wedding of only 100 people or so.  I figured the tea theme might be appropriate since it was his culinary arts passion that got me into tea.

Let me know what you think! 🙂

[Anonymous]

Congrats!  That is such an awesome idea!  I vote for a green and white combo.  If you do cookies, those matcha cookies are awesome.  I’ve also done earl grey cookies and lavender cookies that came out awesome.  There are a lot of tea themed cocktails out there if that is doable.  Personally, I make an awesome strawberry oolong martini and a fantastic coconut cream pie rum drink.  The tea “2 leaves & a bud” design would look nice on wedding cakes, napkins, etc.  You could create a master stencil and add on things yourself.  I had a friend do fall leaves as a wedding theme and that came out pretty awesome.  Everything was in the shape of leaves and there were gold leaves and real leaves on the cake.  Definitely go for mostly funky flavors.  When I do events that involve the mass public only a handful of people go for green or traditional black teas the rest jump on the coconut cream pie, mango lassi, pistachio ice cream type teas.  Letting people steep their own tea usually turns into a huge disaster.  Especially since it is harder to control the water temperature for multiple types of tea.  I would do buffet style if I was you.  Also, you may want to test out making tea in large batches because it is a bit more challenging than for a single cup.  Also, a display tea in a funky vase or clear pot would be a cool centerpiece.  I would recommend brewing the tea first, then ditching the water and putting the display tea in cold water.  You would want one of the larger display teas though.  Just some humble suggestions.  I have done a number of events (not wedding related though) so if you have any questions about making teas in mass quantities please let me know.            

[ThePurrfectCup]

Congrats again! This is a neat idea! I love the above suggestion of tea infused cocktails. I’ve never tried it myself, but I know there are some yummy recipes out there.

Is there anyone in your area that does tea tastings? Maybe you could have that at the reception too? That would be different. As for the teas to serve? You could try a few of each in the cocktail as well as non-alch hot and iced. Depending on where you live, no idea how hot or cool it would be where you are.

Have you ever heard of http://www.madpotsoftea.com/ ? She does PersonaliTeas based on a questionare you fill out. Maybe she could come up with a wedding blend for you to make favors out of? That could be neat.

Best of luck planning. I loved planning my wedding and would be happy to help even if it’s just to bounce more ideas off of me. Let me know.

[Anonymous]

Courtney-Since you’ve never tried a TeaTini, here is a link to my Strawberry TeaTini recipe.  I love adding real ripe fruits to the teatinis and this would work with any ripe fruit and fruit flavored tea.  Check it out: http://butikiteas.blogspot.com/2011/10/strawberry-teatinis.html

[jopj]

Congratulations, another idea you might consider is serving tea infused appetizers. 

[Author]

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