6 Tips For Decorating Your Wedding Entrance With Florals
Wedding entranceways decorated with floral decor always make a gorgeous impact! Whether welcoming your guests as they arrive at your wedding, or leading the way from one area of your celebration to the next, flowers signal celebration and start your event off beautifully. I love to think about an event’s flow when I’m designing. Where will guests gather, look or walk? This helps me find opportunities to add flowers to the doorways, gates, entrances and exits that guest will be using throughout the day and evening. As they physically move through a floral installation, they get to interact with the beauty and scent of flowers in a way that feels so exhilarating.
To inspire your own ideas for event decor, I’ve gathered 6 tips for designing floral wedding entranceways with examples of each idea…
1. Make the Most of Existing Architecture
Look around your event venue and explore what’s already there! What architectural elements or furnishings can you use as a starting point for floral decor? At this wedding at Hummingbird Nest Ranch, we took advantage of this preexisting iron gate and simply intertwined the scroll work with trailing greens and studded it with Sahara roses. We didn’t have to build a new structure or anything elaborate to create a stunning entrance to the ceremony. Sometimes the simple solution is the best! Photos by Shumanev Productions
2. Soften Elements With Touches of Flowers
To create a soft, romantic wedding atmosphere, strategically placing touches of flowers can transform a stark or non-traditional venue or element. At St. Lucia Preserve in Carmel, California we wanted to soften up this wedding reception’s barn entrance so we draped the doorway with flowing fabric and edged it with a cascading floral garland. Wine barrels holding candles and floral arrangements flanked the entrance to fill the space with more dimension and interest. Next to the barn doors we leaned vintage glass doors against a tree for a seating arrangement display. The doors alone didn’t draw the eye, so we added petals and an arrangement at their base, and floral foam to hold flowers at their top corners. The flowers elevated and softened the display and created a picture-perfect vignette the guests loved. Photos by Larissa Cleveland
3. Emphasize Entrances For Your Guests
If your venue is large, or if guest need to move from one location to another, use flowers to provide directions and emphasize the entrance to the ceremony, cocktail area, reception or even restrooms. At this chic outdoor wedding in Santa Barbara, the cocktail area was a walk across the estate from the ceremony location, so we hung floral monograms at the gate to guide guests to their next destination. The couple's initials were made from flowers in floral foam and perfectly matched the look of the event. Photos by Melissa Musgrove
4. Set the Tone and Create Atmosphere
What is the first thing your guests will see when they arrive at your event? Flowers can be the perfect way to thoughtfully set the tone and create a gracious atmosphere right from the first moment. At this bridal fashion event for wedding dress designer, Allison Webb, we infused LA’s Carondelet House with the feeling of a rustic Italian Villa. Decorating the building’s entrance with greenery and roses helped set the tone immediately. Photos by Jessica G Mangia Photography
5. Get Creative
If your venue is a blank slate, get creative to add the floral touches you’re envisioning. At this bridal shower, the tunnel like entrance into the restaurant was clean and white with nothing to attach flowers to. As a creative solution for building an organic looking floral arch, we fashioned two vertical floral floral arrangement on metal structures to the left and right of the opening, and wired greenery across the top to mimic an arch. Custom vinyl decals covered the walls and together with the lush florals created a dynamic start to the party! Photos by Katie Beverley
6. Make It Look Organic
Floral decorations don’t need to stand out to make a statement, sometimes they can create the most impact by looking like they were there all along. At this wedding we softened the barn’s facade with draped fabric and a very simple square garland at entrance to the reception. To up-level the entire look we then extended extra pieces of greenery up the side of the barn so it looked like it was growing there naturally. A perfect look for a rustic space! Photos by Nikki Ryan
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