Maybe you’ve already gotten your venue booked, or maybe you’re still looking around for one.
Either way, it takes more than just an empty space to have a visually stunning wedding.
You need a landscape or backdrop, which you should have, since you’re planning an outdoor wedding.
And perhaps just as importantly, you’ll need to add some more subtle touches to really bring out all that your natural surroundings and venue have to offer.
In the hope that we may be able to help you accomplish that, we’re now going to describe to you two of our all-time favorite outdoor wedding decorations.
These should be able to bring out the best in any venue, especially if your venue is also already gorgeous.
1. Celebrate Life
We mean this in every way possible.
Your wedding is already a celebration of your shared life together, that’s true.
But why celebrate only your own life?
You’re not the only living person or thing in the world, right?
And in some way, you are connected to and reliant upon other people and creatures.
So, why not also incorporate other forms of life into your outdoor wedding decorations?
Don’t worry, we’re not about to tell you to go vegan.
Mainly, we are referring here to plants utilized as an artistic medium.
If you want to add a petting zoo or something like that, we’re sure it would also be very cool.
But we’re talking about plants.
Living Wall
Most weddings will have a bouquet and probably some flowers in vases.
But how many will have a living wall?
Yes, you can cover an entire wall in flowers, ferns, branches, vines, fruits, and whatever other flora you can find.
You can also build living arches to walk through in the same way.
These things bring the best and most beautiful parts of nature into your wedding.
And the best part is that they do so without bringing in any of the less attractive things that are out there, like venomous spiders, naked mole rats, and mosquitoes.
Just the pretty plants for us.
Not all of nature is pretty or nice, but flowers and ferns certainly are.
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Living Centerpiece
Ok, now take the same concept we just went over for a living wall and apply it to your centerpiece.
You can make your own outdoor wedding decorations in the form of statues and sculptures out of plants just as easily as you can make walls out of them.
That’s basically what hedge trimmers in fancy gardens do every day.
Realistically, a living centerpiece could be as simple as a tasteful flower arrangement in a vase, but you can even make that a little more creative by replacing the vase with a pumpkin or gourd.
And why stop there?
Why not arrange the plants in such a way that they spell out a word or even take the shape of your favorite animal?
You can use plants as an artistic medium, just like paint and clay, to bring a vision to life (pun intended).
If you really want to be poetic, you can even start growing your own living sculpture on the day that you officially reserve your wedding venue.
If you’re like most Americans, you’ll probably be reserving a year or more in advance, which is enough time to grow some flowers and ferns (maybe even moss).
Oh, and by the way, if you do this, you’ll want to sketch and plan everything out before you execute so that none of your plants dry out before you’ve figured out how to arrange them.
2. Lantern-Lit Pathways
This is one of the best outdoor wedding decorations, particularly for late afternoon and evening.
So, it depends on what time of day you intend to actually perform the ceremony.
And you can pull it off in a number of different ways, according to your own personal preferences.
For example, you can choose paper lanterns to match the more Eastern theme of your floral arrangements.
Maybe you’ve decided to incorporate a lot of lotus flowers, cherry blossoms, and things like that into those arrangements.
Alternatively, you can choose traditional or premodern European glass lanterns, like those that would have been used by early American colonists or whalers in Moby-Dick.
This way, you can very easily give your wedding a fantasy or medieval vibe.
Or, if you choose to go the more 1700s/1800s route, you can create an early Americana, frontiersman, Old West, Antebellum, or even nautical aesthetic.
Lastly, if you’re looking for something a little more “The Alchemist”-y, you might consider Moroccan/Arabic copper lanterns.
They have a very unique and distinctive appearance, appearing both rustic and fantastical at the same time.
Additionally, you can get them with stained glass panels so that the light emanating from your candles inside shines out in various colors.
These sorts of lanterns also tend to have holes carved into their bodies in various geometric shapes so that the emerging light projects those shapes onto walls as well.
Bonus: A Quick Note On Candles
Regardless of the type of lantern you select, candles and gas lanterns are generally preferable to electricity most of the time.
Electricity can be cut off or interrupted by something as small as someone stepping on a chord. Plus, candles just look the best (gas lanterns are a close second).
If you use candles, opt for all-natural beeswax candles to avoid the potentially toxic chemicals in scented candles and other air fresheners.
Also, if you have any exposed flames anywhere, try to put them where children can’t reach or bump into them.
Otherwise, just enclose them in a glass box, such as a traditional European glass lantern.
Don’t Conceal; Magnify
The great thing about having a wedding outside is that, unless you’re hosting it next to a junkyard or something, you’ll automatically already have a breathtaking backdrop.
All you really need to do is not cover it up or ruin it.
However, you can do even better by using outdoor wedding decorations to creatively bring out the magic and wonder in that natural space.
The goal is not necessarily to create a whole new landscape, but rather to enhance what’s already there and give it a more dreamy feel than most people might have gotten from it before.
That otherworldly vibe was always there; you’re just finding crafty ways to bring it more to everyone’s attention.
