All you need to know about taking a blank canvas wedding venue and making it look fabulous or adding unique touches to the existing sumptuous decor.
When choosing how to decorate your wedding venue, what you are really doing is sharing your personality as a couple. This is the wonderfully exciting thing about being wedding stylists in Kent, no big day is ever the same. Every couple is unique and each of them brings something new to a venue that has never been seen before. This may come in the form of floral masterpieces to festoon your tables, centrepieces that provide a talking point, or first dance effects to wow your guests. But all of these amazing wedding ideas will remain exactly that, ideas, unless you know how to decorate a venue.
In this post we would like to share with you how best to go about decorating your wedding venue and the logistics that go on behind the scenes in order to make your wedding look fabulous. Whether you’re planning to style your big day yourself, or call in the experts, it’s good to know how things are done, before you need to!
Meet with Your Venue
Before you plan any kind of decoration for your wedding venue, it’s vital that you talk to them first and discuss your plans. Some venues will have wedding co-ordinators who will help you organise your wedding, others will very much leave it up to you. Regardless of the wedding team or the package you have chosen with the venue, you need to ascertain what you can and cannot do within their space. Arm yourself with a list of important questions and get the answers you need in order to understand how you can decorate your wedding venue. Timing is a huge consideration. When can you access the room? When and where can decorations be delivered? Can items be hung from the walls/ceilings? Are there any rules that need to be adhered to when packing up and what time does the room need to be clear? Tailor your questions if you have wedding stylists or decoration suppliers in Kent like us on board, we are always happy to come along to your meeting at the venue and get to know your venue wedding coordinator to make sure that everything is exactly right on your big day.
Book an Expert in Wedding Decoration
Planning a wedding is harder than you may think and to decorate a venue is an art in itself. You need to decide early on in your planning whether you are really prepared to manage and style a wedding all by yourself. It takes a huge amount of time, effort and sometimes a bigger budget to produce a professional look without experience. Hiring a wedding stylist or a full on wedding planner in Kent can really take the weight off your shoulders and help you enjoy the run up to your dream wedding. It is often a lot more affordable than you think. For instance, many decorative or interactive items would be a lot more expensive to buy outright for a single use, compared to simply hiring them from a venue stylist who will then include the delivery, set up and removal of the items in their cost. In addition, wedding professionals often liaise with the wedding venue on your behalf, leaving you with more time to ponder over peonies or petunias for your bouquet and focus on saying ‘yes’ to the dress!
Do a Dry-Run of Your Reception Tables
When planning to decorate a wedding venue, it’s vital that you have a table design plan prepared before the big day. This is true for couples who are intending to DIY their decorations and planning, and for those who have chosen wedding stylists or planners. Gather together all of your table decorations and experiment with them at home until all the elements come together as you had envisioned. This may not be easy if you are renting particular items or opting for fresh flowers but try and source a sample or something similar. Once you’re happy with the overall look, photograph it from all angles and share it with anyone involved in preparing your reception. Create clear, visual instructions and your friends and family should be able to recreate your vision on the day. You’ll need to build in some time on the morning of your wedding to go and check out that what you imagined and asked for is the end result.
Give Yourself Plenty of Time
However much time you’re planning to put aside to decorate your wedding venue, triple it! Time how long it takes you to put a chair cover on, iron and tie a sash and then multiply that by the number of guests and then add on half the time again as you can’t keep going at a speedy rate for let’s say, 100 chairs. You will then need to consider the amount of time for decorating the tables and ensuring the place names match the table plan. Don’t forget your ceremony room! Chairs will need covering there too to ensure cohesion with your reception room and you might like to think about decorations to line the aisle, backdrops and props to provide a unique setting for the photographs of the two of your exchanging your vows and maybe even a bay tree or two!
At the beginning of this post we suggested asking your venue what time you could start setting up and as you can see this is definitely a case of the earlier the better. This is a hot and tiring job so if there is no wedding taking place the day before yours and you can start preparing early, that is the best answer your venue could give. Anything can go wrong – one of your team of helpers could decide they aren’t able to arrive early, some things take longer than you will be expecting and sometimes plans need to change. If you can fully decorate your wedding venue the day before, then the pressure is off, and then all you need to do is place the fresh flowers and enjoy your wedding breakfast!
Prepare Your Exit Plan
Nobody wants to think about the break down and clean up after the wedding. But it’s important to get a plan in place way before the day of your nuptials in order to facilitate a smooth transition from vows to the last dance.
When discussing your plans to decorate with your wedding venue, also ask about their break down procedures. Will they remove the chair covers and sashes, break down the table decorations carefully, disassemble the back drops and keep them for you? How long will they be prepared to store these things for you? Do you need to collect and dismantle everything yourself early the following morning or will they keep your items until you return from your honeymoon?
This is another massive benefit of bringing a wedding stylist in Kent like us on board. We will organise the all of the break down for you which will leave you and your guests able to enjoy the evening and then rest up after all those champagne toasts!
We hope we have informed you on how best to decorate your wedding venue. If you’ve decided that you’d like some expert wedding stylists to decorate your venue in Kent, then we would love the opportunity to join your team!
Diamond Circle Weddings Ltd is an experienced decorative hire and planning company specialising in weddings and other milestone events. We are a team of professionals that take great pride in our unique ideas and ability to transform spaces to reflect the vision of our clients. Please feel free to browse some of our past real weddings and also get in touch via our contact page.
