Happy Friday everyone – it’s time for another of our monthly inspiration features, designed specifically with Love My Dress® readers in mind. Here at Pocketful of Dreams, we’ve had a summer of marquee weddings – from beautiful and traditional canvas-pole tents through to rustic stretch tents and contemporary clear frame marquees, we’ve worked with them all in 2014.
A marquee wedding is a great option if you’ve got a larger wedding party or you’re looking for something that offers you a little more creative control…you don’t need to worry about swirly event carpet or decorative elements that clash with your own design vision. However, the blank canvas they provide can be both a blessing and a curse, as ultimately you’re investing in a big white box and need to consider every little aspect of the space in your styling. A marquee is also not a “cheap” option as you not only have to build your design from the ground up, you also need to bring in a multitude of other services: generators, lighting, flooring, portable toilets and kitchen equipment all need to be hired in. But that’s a post for another day.
What marquees or tents do provide you with is huge creative potential, and at Pocketful of Dreams, those words are music to our ears. So today we thought we would bring you our top tips on how to decorate a marquee like a wedding pro:
A GRAND ENTRANCE
Your marquee is your domain for the day so approach the styling as you would when designing your home. Every aspect of the space needs to be considered, starting from the entrance. Do you want to add a warm welcome? Then maybe provide a rug or different matting to provide a clear entrance point.
Large floral displays or styled set ups flanking the entrance add drama and clearly signpost the way for your guests plus they can double up as a card collection point, because trust us the first things guests want to do is deposit their cards and gifts, then they want a drink.
You could also consider investing in a proper doorway, such as a closing wooden door which not only looks the part but also has the practical advantage of keeping the warmth in, useful if you’re getting married earlier or later in the year.
Image credit: Helen Cawte Photography // Wedding styled by Pocketful of Dreams
START AT THE BOTTOM
You really do have to bring everything in for a tent wedding, and that starts with the flooring. Coir matting is great for festival or relaxed weddings as they provide a rustic look and have the advantage of covering up a multitude of sins (ideal when you’ve got lots of guest marching through the tent).
If however you want a more refined look then consider carpeting laid down over wooden flooring for a level space and a more elegant aesthetic. There is a price premium associated with this though, expect to pay about 2.5 times the price for wooden flooring and carpet compared to coir matting. For a 40×80 foot tent for example, this could be in the region of £2,000.
As a more cost effective alternative, look at event flooring. This won’t give you a totally rigid flat surface as it follows the contours of the ground, but it does help to level out bumpy grass and provide a more solid footing. Also, consider the colour of your carpet; ivory is likely to get very dirty, very quickly! Other colour options can really change and enhance the ambience within the space – green offers a rustic and almost grass-like feeling whilst black will make it look very contemporary.
Image Credit: Chris Barber //Wedding designed & styled by Pocketful of Dreams
LOOK UP
Marquees and tents give you lots of height to play with and although you may need to take into consideration sloping roof lines, these high ceilings (up to 21 feet in a traditional pole tent) provide lots of potential for hanging.
Ceiling installations can add instant drama and create that real wow-factor. It doesn’t have to be elaborate either, we’ve strung rows of handmade hessian bunting with neon-dipped ends into a marquee space, which helped to break up the vast whiteness of the marquee linings. We’re also huge fans of hanging florals and foliage in the ceiling spaces as these offer a really whimsical aesthetic. It’s essential to work with florists who not only understand the vision you have for this but also the capabilities to make it happen. We love Euphoric Flowers and can vouch that Simon loves nothing more than climbing up tall ladders, Wildabout are also experts when it comes to installations and we worked with them to create a vast paper lantern installation with strings of hanging orchids for an urban London wedding last year.
The Pulley systems used for lighting and power can make the hanging process much simpler, just make sure you speak to your marquee company in advance so they can advise you on hanging points and weight restrictions and get your florist to co-ordinate plans with them.
Image credit: Helen Cawte Photography // Wedding styled by Pocketful of DreamsLININGS
Consider flat linings rather than the standard pleated, they provide a much cleaner and sleeker look. Or, to add real wow-factor, look to marquee companies such as LPM Bohemia who offer an amazing range of patterned and coloured linings. These create interest in the space and can mean you need far less decor and florals to fill it, so are a smart option all round.
Image Credit: Chris Barber //Wedding designed & styled by Pocketful of Dreams
FURNITURE
Not only an essential requirement but a key tool for softening the space and creating the right mood, whether you’re channeling contemporary modern or rustic chic.
Our motto at Pocketful of Dreams is avoid chair covers at all costs, they’re not only ugly but you will just end up adding more white canvas into a white canvas space….bleugh and as one of our grooms rightly said “who wants a chair that’s dressed up like a bridesmaid anyway”. Besides, the joy of a marquee wedding is that you get to bring everything into the space and make it personal to your own style, so there shouldn’t be any need to cover up ugly furniture.
The chairs for your wedding breakfast are decoration in their own right so choose wisely: darker woods add warmth, lighter woods look fresh, metal adds a funky edge, ghost chairs a contemporary twist whilst colour adds interest. You don’t have to have all of one type either, mismatched can give the space quirky edge. Expect to pay anything from £3 to £15+ a chair, depending on the type and style you opt for.
Image Credit: Nick Rose Photography //Wedding designed & styled by Pocketful of Dreams
CREATE ZONES
Don’t try to fill every inch of the tent with decor and details, instead focus on creating a few key zones:
Chill-Out: If all the celebrations take place within one main tent then a chill-out zone is a must, and this is where you can go wild with your own specific design stamp. We love working with Kate at Vintage Style Hire as she has the most eclectic collection of vintage furniture in luxurious fabrics and fabulous Farrow and Ball colours.
Bar: Think about how it can be made a little more interesting as it’s a space that’s guaranteed to get the most use. A shelved backbar offers lots of opportunities for styling, the one below is an antique apothecary bar that we sourced, adding scientific beakers, test tubes and all sorts of curios to it for a mystical look. A hanging backdrop of foliage is great for a botanical look or a wall of glitzy shimmer curtain will provide that real party experience.
If it’s not obvious then don’t keep guests guessing – a BAR sign serves a practical purpose but is another opportunity to inject some style and personality.
Image Credit: Nick Rose Photography //Wedding designed & styled by Pocketful of Dreams
Image Credit: Charley Smith Photography // Wedding designed and styled by Pocketful of Dreams
Cake: Choose interesting furniture for the display of your cake instead of the standard white tableclothed space, vintage armoirs and even wooden barrels do the trick. Add flowers and foliage or create an eye-catching backdrop to make it a real focal point, you could even use this space to display yours and your bridesmaids bouquets, just have enough vases filled with water and pop them in before you sit down.
Finally make sure all zones are lit really well, uplighters will make these features a real focal point, whilst candles will give an ambient glow.
Image Credit: Tori Hancock //Wedding styled by Pocketful of Dreams
ROOMS: With clearspan tents, you have the ability to add additional aluminium frame structures to create internal partitions and some pole tents can be joined together with top-hat walkways. Curtains can then be hung to divide the tent up into separate “rooms”, providing the perfect opportunity to reveal spaces as the day progresses. This is a great option for the dancefloor, ensuring you can create more of a party vibe for the evening and that bands and DJs can set up “behind the scenes” so there is no lull time from dinner to dancing.
INTERACTIVE STATIONS
Unlike a traditional venue with multiple rooms and spaces that your guests may move between throughout the day, a marquee means guests are spending the entire reception in one big space. Introducing interactive stations helps to keep things fresh, ensuring guests have different things to explore throughout the day.
The guestbook is an obvious one – don’t just dump a book in the corner, style the guestbook station with backdrops, decorative signage or feature lighting. Or up the interactivity stakes with a photobooth (DIY or hired) where guests get the opportunity to leave a photo as well as a note.
Image Credit: Chris Barber //Wedding designed & styled by Pocketful of Dreams
Food stations are a popular choice – from a decadent dessert station to a healthy snack bar, the possibilities are endless.
Image Credit: Nick Rose Photography //Wedding designed & styled by Pocketful of Dreams
Or why not go for something really unusual…we’ve had lots of fun this year designing stations as varied as a tequila tasting station and a tattoo parlour (temporary, of course!).
Image credit: Helen Cawte Photography //Wedding styled by Pocketful of Dreams
LIGHTING
Consider how your lighting requirements will change throughout your reception. If you’re getting married at the height of summer it won’t get dark until after 9pm and typically people bust their best moves on the dancefloor when it’s a little bit darker! Utilise dimmable lighting so you can lower the light levels as the night goes on and lots of candlelight to give your zones a lovely glow. We say stick to warm white lights – cold white will undermine any warmth that you’ve successfully brought into the tent with your decor, unless you’re going for a really contemporary aesthetic cool lighting is generally not a good idea.
The style of lighting can also really enhance the space, we’ve used beautiful teardrop crystal chandeliers in the past to add elegance to a marquee space, if you’re going for something more industrial chic then look to hiring in a canopy of naked edison bulbs, for a more rustic aesthetic find chandeliers made from rope and wood.
Image Credit: Chris Barber //Wedding designed & styled by Pocketful of Dreams
You’ll also need to think about external lighting: festoon and fairy lighting can create a beautiful ambient effect but it’s not great as task lighting, so make sure that you’ve also considered the practicalities when night falls. Strategically placed sodium lights at regular intervals will make sure guests can safely find their ways to toilets and car parks, they also look fantastic when uplighting trees and landscape.
If you’re wedding is more of a festival-style affair then really think about lighting up the outdoor spaces and using lighting cleverly as another decor element, it really helps to set the right vibe.
Image Credit: Matt Parry Photography and Doug Hunt // Wedding designed and styled by Pocketful of Dreams
Whether you’re taken with the idea of your own garden or marquee wedding or are considering something entirely different, we offer a design service to couples to create a wedding design concept that’s entirely unique to them. We can work with you to help you refine your ideas, adding our extensive knowledge of what we know works (and doesn’t) and providing you with a set of comprehensive mood boards that you can use to brief your own team of suppliers or we can work with you to make it all happen. Contact us at [email protected] for more information.
Michelle & Vicki xx
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Michelle and Vicki are Creative Event Designers at Pocketful of Dreams – they are passionate about designing, styling and delivering unique weddings, tailored to your own personal story. You can read more about Michelle and Vicki on our About Page.
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Annabel View all Annabel's articles
Founder of Love My Dress. Passionate Podcaster and Editor. Annabel lives in rural North Yorkshire with her husband and business partner Philip, their two daughters and menagerie of furry hounds. She loves photography, meditation, walking, being outdoors and star gazing. She is fierce when it comes to championing talent within the wedding industry and when she's not working on Love My Dress, she supports her husband Philip in the running of the family's sustainable flower farm and floral design business, Moonwind Flowers. In 2013, she became a published author.
