Ugly Chairs - What's a bride to do?

Let me describe a scene that plays out at least three times per season. A bride comes to me midway through her planning, about six months before her wedding. She has already placed a substantial, non-refundable deposit on a banquet hall. The hall is great, the only problem? The chairs that come with the hall are hideous. She comes to me because she wants to make her wedding look good in spite of the chairs.

I can't wave my wand and turn ugly chairs into silver-plated Chiavaris, but I've run into the ugly chair problem several times and there are a couple of different ways to solve it.

• Rent chair covers. NEVER book chair covers sight unseen--you need to make sure they fit the ugly chairs in question. Your banquet hall may have chair covers available for an extra fee, or will probably know a place that carries chair covers that fit their awful chairs. If that's no go, borrow an ugly chair for the day and find a party rental store with covers that fit. If you're in the Raleigh area, A Special Event has chair covers to fit some folding chairs, and Deejays has chair covers to fit round back banquet chairs.



• Rent better chairs. Sounds counter-intuitive, but a chair cover to cover an ugly chair actually costs more to rent than just renting a nice chair that doesn't need to be covered. Deejays has padded wedding chairs for $2.75 to rent, cheaper than any chair cover I've seen. Make sure your banquet hall allows outside chairs and provides a space to put the unwanted chairs.

Both of these options cost money you may not have. Here are some options for the bride on a budget:

• Rent chair covers for the head table only. It's not the perfect solution, but renting 10 chair covers makes a smaller dent in the budget than renting 200, and many of your important pictures will be of the head table.


• Are your chairs truly hideous, or do they just not match your wedding colors? If it's still early and you haven't paid for your table linens or bridesmaids dresses yet, why not change the color scheme to match the chairs?

I wouldn't recommend making your own chair covers unless you own your own sweatshop. A friend of mine tried this more years ago than I care to admit and had to give up after the 20th chair. She ended up only covering the chairs at the head table.

The best solution, of course, is to refrain from booking a venue with ugly chairs or other "deal-breakers."