Let’s talk about table linens. They have been the BANE of my existence for about two or three weeks now…seriously. It’s been a major dilemma and road block in the whole wedding planning process. I know, Mr. CC, I know. I’m making it harder than it has to be…just like SO many things. Oh well. That’s me, and you know that you love me anyway. Thanks for being patient while I was the linen-Nazi there for a few weeks. You’ll be happy to hear that thanks to my MOH coming through in a pinch…we HAVE table linens!
YEAH! YEAH! The crowd roars in the background…ok, so maybe that’s all just in my head. In real life, it’s just me doing the happy dance here while I write this post...
So here’s the problem with my linens. They’re not abnormal in any way, just your standard 120” round tablecloths that I’m looking for. I’m not looking for special material, just plain old regular tablecloth polyester. But I am looking for a specific color. It’s eggplant. (see color chart below)
It’s not purple, it’s not lilac, and it’s definitely not Burple. (If you don’t know what color burple is, just comment below and I’ll explain on a case-by-case situation…) The color that I’ve been looking for is eggplant. A deep, rich, elegant shade of purple that’s almost black it’s so dark. And it’s elusive. Very, very elusive. At least it is in Austin, TX. Maybe in other parts of the country it’s really easy to find. But not in Austin. All of the major party rental places that I’ve contacted do not carry this color. Now, they carry a nice ivory tablecloth that I could then rent a dark purple organza overlay that would work nicely in a pinch…but that’s $12 for the cloth and then $20 for the overlay??? Uh, uh. No way, no how.
I’ve searched high…and I’ve searched low. And honestly, I think that I’ve searched everywhere in between high and low. I’ve searched in person (don’t even bring up the disastrous shopping trip, Mr. CC!) and I’ve searched online. I’ve contacted smaller rental companies by phone and email. I feel that I was VERY diligent in my search here in Austin.
So then I started searching for alternative ways to score me some eggplant tablecloths. Because by this time in the wedding planning process, I’ve worked VERY hard to sway Mr. CC over to the eggplant team, and now he’s set on having these dark purple, very elegant looking, eggplant tablecloths. When I slightly suggested that we use lilac or ivory tablecloths, the look that was shot in my general vicinity was almost murderous. And who can blame him, after riding the color merry-go-wheel ride for several weeks/months and finally being able to stop the craziness – no one wants to start that up again! So, the search started.
I thought of three options: buy them, make them, or rent them from out of town.
Rentals still topped the chart on my list because of the price factor of the other two options. But I was a little leery of renting online without seeing the color with my own eyes.
I found a wholesale party supply place online that I fell in love with their shade of eggplant (image source of above color chart) but unfortunately, to buy the tablecloths, they were $28 a piece. Kind of steep when you’re talking about ordering 15 of those bad boys. Mr. CC gave me the go ahead to order them, but I was a little scared. What if the quality was bad? What if I didn’t like them? So I tried to order just 1 to see how they would work in real life so that I could touch and feel, but since it’s a wholesale supply place, the minimum order was 10. Not going to work. And at $450 for the 15 that I needed, I just didn’t feel right spending the budget on linens.
And I did toy with the idea of trying to resell them as eggplant is a popular wedding color right now. I even thought about trying to find someone to go in together with them through the boards on weddingbee.com. If someone else could pay half and I could pay half and we both got to use them, that would be cool. And when you actually think about it, I would only have to sell them for the price that I paid for them MINUS the rental price that I would have paid to rent them. That way I was selling them for the extra money that I paid out, not just trying to recoup what I had actually paid. You get that? A nice idea, but still seems like a lot of work.
And making them? Even more work. And lots of money. I found some material at a fabric store in North Austin that would work, but it was $5.99/yard. And I calculated that I would need between 5-6 yards per table…not a budget-friendly decision. Not to mention the time that it would take to actually MAKE the darn things.
Enter my MOH. Apparently in all of my forgetfulness I didn’t recall that she organizes her community Christmas dinner each and every year for the Fire Department. And this isn’t some little small-town deal, this is big. So she has all sorts of contacts with restaurants in her town to get linens and such for her party. When I sat down and had dinner with her last week and officially asked her to be my MOH (yes, we both cried) her first official act was to agree to work her contacts for the table linens.
And she came through for me today. She emailed me just now and told me that she found them from her first choice lady for $15/cloth. In the right color. The only downside being that the lady just has 14 cloths, not the 15 that I had originally told her to look for. No problem! Book it! Does she need a deposit? The total of 15 cloths needed that I had given her originally was just an estimate and if I did need extras, then I can always do the bride/groom table or the wedding party tables in ivory to set them apart. No worries. And even though it’s renting sight unseen for me, my MOH assures me that the color is right, and she’ll be able to just bring them in with her and take them back with her. No worry about shipping them back and forth if renting from afar. A NICE solution!
Table linens…CHECK!
Do you feel a great sense of accomplishment when you manage to check off items on your own personal to do list?
I found what I think will be the right shade of eggplant in a 120” round tablecloth that I can purchase, but one of the drawbacks to buying them (other than the price!) was that the shipping charges would probably eat my lunch to get them to me. But those two little words start to make me rub my hands together gleefully!
The first thing that I thought of was to incorporate eggplant napkins, elegantly draped or folded to take up a good portion of the table top. Not my favorite option, but an option that would bring eggplant back to life at the venue. The main concern? If I’m having this much trouble finding eggplant tablecloths, will I run into the same dilemma with napkins? Possibly. But it’s also possible to me that I could make 200 napkins out of that elegant eggplant satin that I found in Dallas on my last trip up there…and with my serging machine and the right shade of thread, it would be a simple matter for the most part. Of course, they might be simple to find and buy, I haven’t looked into the cost of doing that yet…but it’s an option. 
Also along those lines is maybe finding or making eggplant table runners…or those draping cloths that cover the tops of the tables, but don’t go all the way to the floor. Something like the picture above. My problem with this option? Once again, finding the right color in a full tablecloth is hard enough…yada yada yada, you get the point. And I’m not sure that I like the look of table runners. It seems to me that the table might get a little busy with runners, napkins, plates and glasses. Not to mention the centerpieces and anything additional that I put on the tables to jazz them up…so I’m not sold on this option.
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