Robin D'Orazio first spotted the chair covers on soap operas and liked the polished look they gave a wedding.

Slipped over hotel chairs, the satin covers and organza sashes or bows tied neatly around the chair backs ratchet up the elegance factor of wedding decor.

	Robin Rombach, Post-Gazette Robin D'Orazio, of Canonsburg, covers chairs for a wedding reception at the Sheraton Station Square. Click photo for larger image.

People spend so much on food and entertainment, but without the chair covers, it's not the same, said Mrs. D'Orazio, of Canonsburg.

So when her daughter, Shelly, married in 2003, Mrs. D'Orazio decided to cover the chairs for the wedding -- all 400 of them. It was no small feat.

"Is it really going to be worth it?" she remembered relatives asking.

Her daughter, who chose silver covers and sashes, expressed confidence, however.

She "loved it but she had no idea what it would look like," Mrs. D'Orazio said. At that time, in this area at least, it was not as popular as it is today.

Undaunted by the doubting Thomases in her family, Mrs. D'Orazio forged ahead using a serger sewing machine her husband, Dennis, had given her. The serger sews and finishes the seam of the fabric preventing it from unraveling and trims excess material. Plus, it does it all faster than one can say "It's all sewn up!"

The chair covers turned out to be a hit with Shelly, her new husband, Stacy Carbaugh, and family members. Mrs. D'Orazio wound up marrying a novel idea with her business sense.

About six months after her daughter's wedding, she told her husband "I have these chair covers. I think this could be a business."

Satin Chair Covers by Robin was born thanks in part to her husband, who helped her draw up a business plan.

The chair cover idea as business venture turned out to be a match made in wedding reception heaven. Brides choose the chair cover color -- white, off-white, gold or silver -- and the shade of the sash, usually coordinated with bridesmaids' dresses. She stocks about 20 colors of sashes but can match whatever the bride chooses.

Mrs. D'Orazio maintains a stockpile of about 1,500 covers and material for the bows which she keeps in a rented storage facility. She sews them in what used to be Shelly's bedroom.

For the big event, Mrs. D'Orazio enlists the help of family members such as her husband, whose business is selling insurance; Shelly, son Dan, who does a lot of the lifting, and father, Bob Rudge.

Customers rent the covers and bows at a fee of $4.50 per chair.

"I never dreamed it would get this big [or] that I'd be getting this many calls from people," she said.

The covers are so popular she now gets referrals from the hotels and country clubs where receptions are held.

One of her clients was Lynn Sawyer, a reporter for WQED's "OnQ." Her daughter Megan Voelker Rost was married Sept. 2. It was the second time Ms. Sawyer hired a company to supply chair covers.

"Robin had a nicer selection of fabric," she said. "She comes in, puts them on, steams them. The first time [the other company] Fed-Exed them in a box. They were all wrinkled. If you're going for all the details, you want everything to look nice."

The chairs definitely added to the reception.

"It's a very nice touch especially if you're not crazy about the chairs or the chairs don't fit into your color scheme," Ms. Sawyer said.

It's the attention to details such as wrinkle-free covers that Mrs. D'Orazio believes gives her an edge over the competition.

During wedding season from now until fall, she goes into high gear. The job is pretty labor intensive as she launders and irons the covers rather than sending them to a dry cleaners. It took from 9 a.m. to midnight to iron the covers for her daughter's wedding.

She rents a cargo van to transport the covers and sashes to the reception site where she ties the bows. Depending on how large the reception is, the job can take from 1¹/₂ to two hours.

The D'Orazios return later to pick up the covers and sashes. At the height of the wedding season, Mrs. D'Orazio can outfit two or three weddings a night.

She did 40 weddings last year with an average size of 225 guests. Beginning in January, she gets "e-mails like crazy asking for pricing."

In preparation for a recent March 30 reception, Mrs. D'Orazio tied sashes on chairs at a Sheraton Station Square banquet room. This time the sashes were celadon or pale green for the color challenged.

"This is a really big color this year," Mrs. D'Orazio said.

It complemented the bridesmaids' dresses in a slightly deeper shade of green. A wedding cake shaped like a woman's hat in the same shade of green was being assembled center stage. Completing the table decor were glass candle holders filled with pink petals, which spilled onto the tabletops.

Bridesmaids and the bride walked about attending to last-minute details. The bride, Kelly Bowen, soon to be Kelly Melnick, of Sheraden in Pittsburgh, said she chose the chair covers because it's the one thing guests notice immediately on entering a room.

"It's beautiful," she said.

In addition to weddings, Mrs. D'Orazio has provided covers and sashes for a New Year's Eve event and a carnival night at Oglebay Resort and Conference Center, a tea in Wheeling and a fund-raiser for the American Cancer Society. She also did covers for a TV wedding on "Pittsburgh Today Live."

No matter the occasion, Mrs. O'Orazio, who's been invited to a few of the weddings, said, "I like pleasing people. I get a closeness to people."

For a look at her work and for more information, visit her Web site, satinchaircoversbyrobin.com.