DECORATING OUR WEDDING VENUE

You’ve all probably read about how my wedding day panned out; but it’s now time to go into more detail. I want to share all of my suppliers and decor with you, because, well there was a lot of it and I’ve been receiving quite a few questions and requests. This post will focus on the wedding venue decor and which suppliers I sourced from. You might have seen I did a few DIY’s so they will all be featuring in their own posts in case any of you lovely lot want to recreate for your big days. 

Where do I start? Let’s take it back to the beginning and remind you of the theme. So our aim was to bring California to the UK focusing on succulents, cacti and the Palm Springs pastel colour palette. I pinned a lot on my Wedding Inspiration board on Pinterest and even started my own Instagram Collection board. I had all the inspo! The reason for the California theme was because that’s where Robin proposed to me and it was a theme we both shared love for. I didn’t want to takeover and theme it all glitter and mermaids, I wanted it to be a representation of us as a couple.

Once I felt happy with my Pinterest board, I sat down and started to make a list of all of the different elements we wanted to have on the day such as an Ice Cream Van, Doughnut Wall, chill out area and much, much more… Once we’d finalised those elements, it was a case of sourcing suppliers and decor, whilst trying to stick within a reasonable budget.

TABLES & CHAIRS

I loved the thought of rustic, vintage seating and through finding my wedding venue ‘Captains Wood Barn‘, I stumbled upon a hire company called Anthology Vintage. I didn’t realise this at the time, but the owner of that company actually took the bookings for the barn and often supplied that venue, which worked out really well. I chatted to the owner Amy about what would work in the barn for our number of guests and we settled on hiring the 8ft trestle tables and fold out chairs with cream seat pads. It was a tight squeeze, as the tables went from one end of the barn to the other, but it worked and there was space for our guests to manoeuvre. The tables made a great starting point to decorate and suited the vibe of the barn.

TABLE DECOR

I had fallen in love with so many different tableware ideas on Pinterest that consisted of gold cutlery, charger plates and coloured glasses. I didn’t actually need to hire any of it as my caterers were going to supply wooden cutlery and palm leaf plates, but for me personally, I liked the thought of eating off a proper plate, with proper cutlery. I know we had BBQ food but I wanted a nice sit down meal and everything to be on the tables ready for the food to be served.

It took me a while to find a supplier where I could source everything from, but then I found a company based in London, that were willing to travel to Essex, called Classic Crockery. The great thing about them is that they have a huge catalogue of decor and tableware you can hire from and a warehouse you can visit. I took it upon myself to visit their London based warehouse as they said I could pop in and see the products in the flesh and even create a mock up table. I think it was something I needed to do as I had never styled a table before and I was finding it difficult to picture everything in my head.

It took me a few hours to drive there but it was well worth it. They had a few tables, including a rustic one where you could create a mock up table setting. So I grabbed different coloured plates, cutlery and glasses and had a play around until I found a setting I liked. I fell in love with their gold glass charger plates, gold cutlery, white plates with gold edges and pink glasses. They also had quite a few other things on their books so I ended up hiring a pink cake stand, moroccan pouffes and so many gold, vintage candlesticks.

My main focus for the table was to add splashes of colour as everything else was very brown; the tables and chairs and the venue. The pink glasses helped this and so did the pale blue candlesticks I purchased from Nordic House. I spent hours trying to find pale blue ones, in the right shade. Thank god Nordic House had enough for me as I needed 76 of them. They added height and colour to the table and worked really well.

I also added in another pop of colour from the blue napkins I purchased from eBay. Again, really hard to find, but they were weirdly the same price to buy as they were to hire. These were folded into a rectangle shape on every place setting and a menu was popped into the top. The menu was in the same style and colour as our wedding invites which was great as they were pink; so again adding in more colour.

The rest of the table consisted of an ivory macrame table runner (from Rock The Day Styling), pink, blue and gold spray painted pineapples, succulents and cacti in either gold, pink, white or blue pots, ivory candles and gold vases with pink flowers. I definitely think I achieved my goal of making sure there were enough splashes of colour on the table. We even wrapped some green ivy around every other 3rd chair in the set up. It was too much of a big job to do every one, but I think it worked and tied it altogether.

You’re probably wondering where we managed to get all of the plants and ivory candles from… Well that was Ikea. I thought it would be a cheaper way of doing the plant side of things at the venue, but it did turn out to be pricey! We used Ikea a lot for some of the decor bits, as it was the only place where we could buy in bulk.

One thing I’ve missed out is the lighting and DIY handmade chandeliers suspended above the tables. I had seen wedding lighting similar on Pinterest and loved the dangling bulbs. I was so happy that Dreamwave Events were able to create something similar for me. Then the chandeliers which started out as a different design but ended up looking amazing anyway! I was so pleased with how they looked, they injected even more colour into the venue. A post on how I created these coming soon!

THE INDOOR SPACE

The main indoor space was pretty much filled with the tables for the wedding breakfast, but the layout of the barn meant there was space for a few more things: photobooth, glitter station, dessert table and bar! And I’m going to take you through how each of these elements were put together. Starting with the glitter bar! I hired Luna Glitter to apply my Sophie Hannah Beauty glitter and jewels on all of my guests and they came with the most beautiful set up. I told them my wedding theme and they fitted their glitter station around that with succulents and sequins.

Opposite the glitter station was the photo booth corner. I wanted to do something slightly different here, so I hired a sit on glitter moon from Vowed and Amazed – you need to check them out, they have some unreal props! Then instead of having a camera and light set up, I provided Instax cameras with paper for the guests to snap their own photos. I had a box of props from inflatables to fun wigs and our wedding guest book was placed here too for our guests to stick in a photo and leave us a note. This was all displayed on my Dad’s pine bureau that I inherited after his death. I thought it was a nice way to have a piece of him there on the day.

Moving towards the dance floor now – the area created once some tables were moved, I set up a little woven basket of Primark mermaid flip flops for my guests to pop on when their feet hurt. To jazz up the space, I put up a sign I’d designed in a gold frame along with a few wooden crates I purchased and spray painted from Ikea and some plants.

Now onto the dessert bar! I had originally thought this was going to be displayed on a rustic table, but when I arrived to set up the day before the wedding, the barn had a fabulous piece of furniture I could use. It worked so well, and I popped a macrame table runner over the top and started to fill it with desserts. I had a few jars filled with sweeties, a pink letter board, napkins and cutlery, the cake and my DIY doughnut wall. I was so pleased with how it looked! Watch this space, as I will be showing you how to create the doughnut wall soon, in another blog post.

The final part of the indoor space was the built in bar! We decorated it with fairy lights, succulents and another pink letter board with the drink that was available on the night. It was such a great bar area for our many guests.

THE OUTDOOR SPACE

Now moving to the outside of the venue; there was a large space to fill and I had lots of ideas on how to fill it. I wanted to dedicate the outdoor space to activities, to keep my guests entertained. Having been to many blogger events, I always enjoyed the ones where there was ‘stuff’ to do or get involved in. The first thing I knew I wanted was a chill out area for my guests to relax. I opted to have a vintage furniture sofa area, along with a moroccan chill out corner. These were both used throughout the wedding and I’m glad I offered some sort of seating other than the chairs at the meal.

I hired vintage sofas from Vintage Style Hire in a few different colours, they have a great selection to choose from and I thought it would be fun to have one in each colour. I then had a fun idea of creating coffee tables with wooden palettes, which seems like a simple idea, and it was! But sourcing wooden palettes was quite tough! Luckily I have a storage unit and on the days I would visit, I would randomly find some in the car park I’d steal! Took me about 6 months to get the amount I needed, but hey it was free! I dressed the coffee tables with a few candles, succulents, vases and fluffy rugs from Ikea! I also purchased some cute colourful cushions from eBay that were like £4 each to dress the sofas. Next to the sofas was a basket of blankets for when my guests got a bit chilly. I’m glad I had this as all the blankets went! It gets chilly in the evenings in the UK!

The moroccan chill out area was hired from Rock The Day Styling, along with the G&T bar. This bar was used for the drinks reception for Pimms and Prosecco and turned into a G&T bar in the evening. I dressed it was palm leaves, cacti, a pink letter board and other little bits of decor. It was super cute and handy to have a second evening bar for the guests that wanted to grab a drink but that were hanging out outside.

Every wedding has to have giant light up letters don’t they! So I opted for a giant S & R to pop in one of the corners. This actually acted as the backdrop for our drinks reception singer which worked well! I sourced these from Light Up Letters Essex, along with two pink heart lights that we placed on some shelving behind the bar.

Two key activities we had were beer pong and ping pong, something our guests really enjoyed. I designed the personalised beer pong table on Zazzle with Team Robin and Team Sophie sides which I thought was quite fun! I also personalised ping pong bats and balls with our faces and wedding logo on! These added quite a nice personal touch which the guests noticed.

Also within the outdoor space we had a welcome area that included a card/gift box, welcome sign and table plan. I will show you all the card box Ikea hack in another post. We dressed the area with cacti, wooden crates and glass vases and it looked super cute! I borrowed the art easels off a friend and purchased the gold frames online.

Saving the best till last, we had a ball pit! This was a last minute idea that I threw together in just under 3 weeks! I had come across a DIY ball pit online where someone had purchased a 10ft frame swimming pool and hired balls and I did just this! I managed to find a white coloured pool from Argos which was great and we decorated with faux ivy.

And I think that just about sums the decor up! A lot to take in I know, but I had to fill you all in in case any of you wanted to recreate any of it. I will have posts on all my DIY’s coming soon!

To see more wedding posts click here.

Peace
x

Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Youtube | Pinterest