Wedding Tents Like You’ve Never Seen Them Before!

For those looking to have an outdoor ceremony or reception, a wedding tent is essentially a required expense. Even the thought of spending a substantial amount of your wedding budget on a boring, plain white wedding tent is enough to send shivers down any bride’s spine. But unless you want to rent out or build a permanent structure, you will have no choice but to protect your guests from the sun and elements with a tent.

But all hope is not lost! You can upgrade this expected fixture in every outdoor wedding with just a little effort. Look below for some ideas that will disguise the plainness of wedding tents for a look that your guests have never seen before.

Fabricate

A simple step that quickly transforms your wedding tent is to cover the top in fabric. Drape a thin, soft, and romantic fabric over the plain, cold, stark material that typically comprises wedding tents. An slightly off-white color serves as a gentle remedy to the quintessential bleached white hue. Even a light pink, lavender, or blue could be a good option depending on your color scheme.

Light it up

Can’t afford renting out a ballroom for your reception but love the ornate, classy look of such a venue? Hang a couple large lighting fixtures to create an environment that feels like it’s in the middle of a castle rather than in the middle of your backyard. These can be  in the form of chandeliers, lamps, or balls of twinkle lights. The key is to have few clusters of large fixtures. Find ones that at least appear to be of high-quality.

Hanging lanterns

Distract from the unattractive tent ceiling — a mass of poles and white material — by hanging lanterns from the top of the structure. Tie the lanterns to string and attach the string to some of the poles at the top. Unlike the previous suggestion, the more lanterns the better. Too few lanterns will draw your guests’ attention upward but not disguise the plainness of the tent, actually causing more harm than good. But enough lanterns will place the gaze of guests upward and their jaws on the floor. Compile lanterns of a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors and fill the overhead area with these beautiful and functional pieces.

Elevate the cake

Take advantage again of the many poles needed to keep your wedding tent upright to hang something a little more substantial from it, the cake! Place the cake on a piece of wood that can be hung from the roof of the tent with some sort of rope. You can make the elevation obvious by decorating the rope to increase aesthetic appeal. Or you can make the elevation look like magic by using a transparent material to hang it. Either way, before taking this step, before to check with the party you are renting the tent from to make sure that the structure can withstand the weight of the cake.

Go green

Give the tent a personal touch by covering it with greenery. The alive and fresh nature of greens will contrast the plain and stark nature of the tent. Hide the boring silver poles and white fabric with various flowers, branches, and vines. Hang the greenery from the roof. Wrap it around the poles. Place pots at the base of the poles. Make a false ceiling completely out of plants. Such a step will only contribute to the efforts of your outdoor wedding, creating an environment that seems to be in the middle of a forest.

String lights

Wedding tents can boast one thing many other more expensive venues can not, a high ceiling. Make the best use out of this feature and extend string lights from the edge of the tent to the peak the whole way around the tent. The string of lights will provide added interest during the daylight and romantic lighting as the sun sets.

Your reliance on wedding tents to achieve an outdoor wedding does not need to be a source of frustration. These plain structures actually present a blank palate that contains several beneficial characteristics from which you can take advantage. With a little forethought and effort, you can upgrade your wedding tent to be something unlike your guests have ever seen!