Baseball Theme Weddings
"There are only two seasons — winter and Baseball."
— Bill Veeck
You've figured it out — you both want to play on the same team for life. But how to play to the cheering crowd when it comes to your wedding day?
Here are a few tips for a wedding Lou Gehrig would love ... and a whole lot of experience below from baseball-loving brides.
Note to Guests: You've Got Box Seats
Try eBay for helpful stationers who can whip up elegant, personalized baseball theme wedding invitations. Or be super-chic and send your guests custom event tickets that look just like the real thing.
Baseball Decor
Happily, finding a few fun touches that show off your sporty side isn't hard!A Rousing Reception
Try centerpieces featuring roses in your team colors. Chicago Cubs fan? Place bridesmaids' red and white bouquets in vases you've tied off with royal blue ribbon. Attach a handsome enameled team pin to the center of a bow, and you've got an elegant arrangement.Another fun idea: fill large clear vases with mini baseballs, and top with floral "baseballs" made of densely petaled flowers, like white carnations. Adorable!
Add table numbers made from elegant vintage baseball cards — or simply name your tables after leading lights from your favorite team.
Tastes of the Game
Got a sweet tooth? A candy buffet in your colors can be a bold and beckoning statement. Concession picks are perfect here — so are regional treats. Don't forget to fill a jar or two (or scatter the linens) with a few chocolate baseballs. Personalizing striped takeout or pillow boxes with a cute custom label is half the fun. Or, go upscale and yet still stay on theme with a gourmet popcorn bar — or, dress up nostalgic Cracker Jacks boxes with a ribbon or sticker.Ceremonial Touches
Don't forget the ceremony! A treasured mitt makes a wonderful ring pillow. And for fabulous photos, exit under a shower of pennants .... or ask your best men to line the chapel steps so you can duck beneath an "arch of bats" as husband and wife.Last but not least — hand your guests some Sharpies and have them sign a few baseballs or a handsome bat instead of the usual (yawn!) guest book.
A Moveable Feast
Create an unforgettable cocktail hour and bring the astroturf indoors by offering a few outdoor vending classics to your delighted guests — available at major rental stores: soft pretzels with mustard and cheese (or nachos & cheese), ballpark franks, movie-style popcorn, or salt water taffy in waxed paper bags with personalized labels. The carts make these fabulous.For the non-drinkers, serve up personalized bottled water ... and classic Coke with real sugar (no corn syrup!) in glass bottles. This will get guests cheering for days.
A fun addition to cocktail hour? Mock up some "sports news sections" to take to the printers, with headlines starring you and your honey:
Mark and Tori Named CCAC Couple of the Year
Baseball's Winningest Couple Returns To [Hometown]
Tori Selected To The NAIA True Love Team
Mark Earns Top Hitter, Matrimonial Distinction
Needless to say, happy stats and headlines like these are best served with fresh-cut cigars.
Baseball Favors
The baseball theme's a cinch to pull off when it comes to favors. Here are some fun ones:If your guest list's intimate, offer up baseball caps for your beloved Cubs or Red Sox on a table near the door. Or, old-fashioned Crackers Jacks in the boxes makes a head-turning treat.
Team-emblazoned cookies or individual cupcakes can really dress to impress when whipped up by talented pastry artists. Set up a baseball-themed candy buffet. Or, hand out bags of favorite hometown treats: Cubs branded peanuts, Boston Baked Beans.Attach a cute tag with a favor saying, such as You Made Our Wedding A Hit or Our Love Hit A Home Run.
Though we’re jsut doing a baseball themed reception we’ve found that minisportsballs.com will customize baseballs for us for only about $1.50 a peice. They sent us a sample ball and they were amazing. We’re doing all baseball themed food too so if anyone has suggestions to add to the food list above, that’d be appreciated!
That is such a cool idea having one of the sausages there. How do you go about setting that up? My boyfriend would flip if I could get the Phanatic there.
Another idea that you can use is to have a guest book and have baseballs for people to sign. We got a Louisville slugger customized with our names and wedding date and that will be a the centerpiece at the head table. Also–The Racing Sausage are a favorite at the ball park–so I am hiring one for the reception. We are signing the national anthem at the reception and we are going to dance to Take Me Out to the Ballgame. You can find the peanuts and cracker jack at a number of different stores.
We are getting married on October 20, 2007. Brewer and Cubs fan. The solor scheme is Brewer with Navy Blue and Gold and my flowers will be Cubs color theme. We are having centerpieces of big steel buckets with peanuts, cracker jack, sunflower seeds and baseball shped candies. The cake is going to be a baseball sitting on the pitchers mound. Place cards will look like tickets to a game and the tables will be numbered with the AL/NL pennants for teams.
My boyfriend and I are getting married up in Cooperstown the weekend of the HOF inductions later this year. We are keeping the ceremony small, for obvious reasons. The following weekend, we are having the reception in our backyard, which by the way, he painted to look like Veterans Stadium, complete with a almost lifesize handmade wooden Phanatic. For the invitaions, I am planning on using custom tickets with the perforated part being the RSVP, a heck of a lot cheaper than printed invitations, I might add. Also, I am going to have baseball cards made up with our pic and info on them to give out as favors, along with boxes of cracker jacks, and bags of peanuts. I am having a hard time finding anyone online that customizes these items, like they do with chocolate bars, so I am going to order labels with our info on them, and just apply them to the back of the boxes and bags. I haven’t made up my mind on the cake though. I really like the idea of a baseball shaped cake placed on top of coconut tinted green to look like grass, but since there are going to be around 100 people there, I don’t see that being an option. I also haven’t decided on centerpieces yet. Still have some time. Congrats and good luck to all!
Monica
Hi, my fiancee and I are getting married on Sept 22, 2007 and we are both huge cubs fans… Actually, myself a touch more than him! We are having our wedding at a pretty nice place, but I am bound and determined to have a cubs themed reception. Does anyone have any cake ideas, or photos? It is hard to incorporate their colors into the wedding colors, because I will be using browns and burnt oranges, but for the reception, I just want it to be fun and color scheme doesn’t matter.
Andrea, what a great story.
Try here for “a retro reproduction” of the cardboard Cracker Jack boxes. You’re right, they’re hard to find.
My fiance proposed to me by handing me the prize(my ring!) out of the cracker jack box we were eating..it was very sweet, and even cuter when I later found out that that was the very same way his father proposed to his mom.
I am trying to figure a way to incorporate the cracker jacks- maybe as a favor?- into our wedding. Any suggestions, or leads would be awesome. I remember seeing somewhere (new) vintage style boxes as favors…cant seem to find them now when i need them…
Can anyone give me a wedding format for getting married on the field.
Would you have the ceremony at home or on the picture’s mound? Where does the family sit? In the stands or on the field too? I know I want our first act as husband and wife to be taking communion, where would we set up the alter?
I love the idea of getting married on the field, but I am not confident enough with my creative ideas to organize the ceremony. Any help hints would be greatly appreciated!
I love this site!!! Thanks for all the tips. I am getting married March 10th, on a softball field. We too, met playing co-ed softball. I would love to know how everything went with you and if you had any unforseen surprises!!.
Thanks!
i am not having a baseball-themed wedding but we are interpersing baseball elements throughout. my fiancee and i are huge sf giants fans so our table numbers are numbers of our favorite players. i am trying to see if our favors can be personalized baseball cards of us. my ringbearers pillow is going to be round with the red lacing. we are also having 2 guestbooks, 1 traditional and for the other we are going to have people sign a personalized bat.
it is so cool to see other women having baseball themed weddings. congrats all!
kim
I am also having a baseball themed wedding and we’re using the idea of naming the tables after different MLB teams. For Save the Date cards we made baseball cards that said: Gameday (Wedding Date), Field (The church), First Pitch (Time of the wedding), Post Game (Where the reception was at), Managers (our parents). They were a big hit and everyone loved them. I found them at http://www.CustomSportsCards.com and they were very resonably priced. My fiance does not like baseball as much as I do so not everything is baseball but a few little touches are fun! If you have any other ideas let me know.
great ideas here, thanks. I am doing a baseball theme for my son’s Bar Mitzvah. I am at a loss for centerpiece ideas…. any suggestions? Thanks!
We are having a baseball wedding and we are using ballparks as table names (Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, etc). For placecards we are using tickets. Each ticket has the person’s name and what “ballpark” they will be sitting at for the day. i used an old ticket from a Red Sox game to model it after.
oh oh… I just had one hit me as I replyed… lets see… Ok do there names like a baseball card.. It would be great if you had pics of the guest, but if not do a border and have there name in the middle in some kind of basedall looking font…
I am thinking hard this time before I reply… To see if that is all I can come up with…. ok nothing else…
ok… hmmm are you on a tight budget? if not.. get baseballs & put each guests name on it… It can be a favor as well…
That’s a cute idea but….we are already using pennants that we bought for the table names! LOL Are we on the same page of what!
Thanks for the idea anyway!
ok here is a thought to the place cards… Make little penants… I think you might be able to by them though… Anyway, if not… Make little penants out of paper and attatch to toothpicks… Then use clay or something and make little bases or whatever and attatch the toothpick into the base… Write the guests names on the penants…
Needs some help coming up with a cute idea for place cards for my wedding, October 21, 06. The tables will be names after different MLB teams. Any ideas!?
TIA!!
Amy
we are using astro turf to walk down the aisle. officiant will stand at pitchers mound, and we’ll stand at home plate. our wedding cake will be powdered covered mini-donuts with red piping (to mirror baseballs) with mini chocolate cover baseballs as giveaways. our table decor will be grass (cat grass, the tall skinny kind) with potted daisies interspersed on table for colour. hope this helps!
Hi Everyone… I am looking for a place to order in-shell peanuts that have a personalized label with the names of the bride and groom. Does anyone have any suggestions?
I was just wondering if anyone has some ideas for me. My fiance and I just decided that we are going to have our wedding on a softball diamond. I have so much planning to do I dont know where to start.
Thanks!
I am getting married Sept. 1, 2007… My fiance & I met playing coed softball, so we did fall in love over home plate…lol… Anyway, I have been trying to come up with some ideas for our wedding that wont seem to birthday party.. Thank you for the ideas, they seem pretty cool, and easy, and cheap…. I would love to know of anymore.. We were thinking of having the whole wedding party except me & Michael to wear jerseys… & the bridesmaids to carry gloves with flower balls in them with streamers hanging down… I have some but not many ideas… Then after the reception have a coed softball game… I think that would be so fun…
Hey Erin….Congrats on the wedding Saturday, hope everything is awesome. try the website….
http://www.specialoccasionpoetry.com/wedding_vow.htm
Good Luck!!!
I’m desperately searching for some baseball-themed vows. We are getting married on Saturday and I’ve looked all over the web for some fun vows. I did find some great Dr. Suess vows which our kids would love — but no baseball. Any ideas … or anyone ever hear of sports vows being said?
Hello Sandi, Liz, & Kristy, my name is Kristina, my other half and i will be married on a softball field Aug 13th of this year. a couple of websites i found for favors — try oriental trading company, i fond a lot of bulk items there. Also — PartySecrets, they had tablecloths, baseball streamers, centerpieces, etc…i love the idea of baseballs in the vase! =) thats awesome. some other things that were doing in our wedding, we are having our bridal party walk down to the instrumental version of take me out to the ball game. our reverend has a jersey being made for him, as well as our ring bearers and flower girls. i had a lot of family and friends go all out with this, and i get shot different ideas every day. new websites are always being emailed to me so i will post them when i gather a few. Good luck with everything ladies…i hope all goes perfectly as planned.
Congratulations!!!
Hi there! I am also getting married on a baseball field! We are serving hot dogs and nachos, etc…we are keeping decos simple. Buying simply straight glass vases and putting baseballs in them for the centerpieces…we are doing peanuts and cracker jacks…etc. I’m having a local print shop make invites that are long and thin-tri fold so when they open up they look like a big baseball ticket and the stub is the RSVP card! I’m always looking for new ideas…if anyone has any, let me know!!! Good luck to all!
Thanks for the wonderful ideas..We are getting married on a baseball field so I want great favors at the reception!! It helps a lot thanks
Hello,
I am getting married in May and I have been trying to find baseball themed favors for months and haven’t been able to find anything. Do you have any other ideas or websites that I can try? I was thinking that baseball measuring spoons(like they have with the hearts) would be cute but I think that – that is a pipe dream. Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
Kristy
Thank you to the great ideas!! We are having a baseball theme wedding…thanks again!
I like the idea of the cookies. Is there a way I can buy the cookies in bulk so that I can package them myself? I looked and couldn’t find a bulk pricing. I am expecting about 160 people. Please let me know!! Thank you for the great idea:)