My Top 5 Tips for Designing a Beautiful Tent Wedding

With covid the way it is, I expect that we’ll continue seeing a lot of tent weddings throughout the 2021 wedding season.

There are many things to love about a tent wedding:

the ability to host your loved ones at a special property, the ease with which you can customize the event design, and the ambiance can be so exciting and inspiring.

Planning: Gather Events | Photo: Nancy Ray | Via: Town & Country

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Let’s ensure your wedding is more beautiful than the typical tent event.
Read on for my 5 top tips to design a beautiful tent wedding!

PS Before you scroll too far, open up this Pinterest Board in another tab! Here you’ll find more awesome tent wedding ideas 😘

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1. Pay Attention to the Colour Palette

   Tent weddings usually mean lots of green (grass) and lots of white (tent walls). This makes it really easy to design a classic white and green wedding, but if you’re working with a different colour palette, you really need find ways to incorporate your palette to make it stand out!

My favourite way to bring a colour palette to life is actually with the table linens. Upgrading to coloured table linens makes a massive difference simply because of the large amount of visual real estate that table linens take up. Choose the foundational colour in your palette so that you can make the rest of the palette sing with other accents, like your centrepieces.

Planning and Design: Alison Events | Photo: Tec Petaja | Via: 100 Layer Cake

2. Play with the Floor Plan

One of the awesome bonuses of a tent is that you are not restricted to any structural barriers, nor do you have to feel like you have to follow any set of rules. You can do whatever you want! Mix of long banquet and round tables? Do it. Want to put the head table right in the middle of the floor plan? Love it.

Choose what you want to be the focal point of the tent, and design your floor plan around it.

Planning: Always Yours Events | Photo: Jessica Schifilliti

Planning: A. Dominick Events | Photo: Jodi & Kurt Photo | Via: Ruffled

4. Incorporate Unique Lighting

Enlist the help of a great lighting team. Frequently, tent weddings take place outside of the city where it gets really nice and dark in the evening. Whether you want bistro string lighting, classic chandeliers, or a collection of casual textured basket lanterns, some sort of overhead lighting will make a large impact on the overall ambiance. And, of course, don’t forget about the power of candlelight, flickering low to the table all night long.

My go-to lighting experts here in Winnipeg are Event Light. They cover everything power-related (thank goodness, because I don’t think I’m alone in not knowing what any of that means), they’ve got a great inventory of stylish lighting options, and they also have all the tall ladders I ever need to hang flowers 😉

Planning & Design: Amorology | Photo: Tenth + Grace | Via: Style Me Pretty

3. Make a Grand Entrance Statement

Tents are often large, and with the side panels open, guests can trickle in from anywhere. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the flow of traffic can feel a little directionless, so establishing a focal point can make an enormous difference to your guests' experience. I love taking this opportunity to create a gorgeous entrance to the tent that also serves a purpose: welcoming guests, guiding them to their tables, and adding to the overall event design. ⁠This could be a large floral installation or oversized floral urns flanking the entrance, an expertly designed seating chart or escort card table, or a welcome table set with champagne. Create a focal point, designed with a purpose, and add something extra to the guests’ experience.

Planning: Amorology | Photo: Scott Clark | Via: Style Me Pretty

5. Upgrade Your Rentals

This one is a big one for me: upgrade your rentals, people!! Caterers often include a very basic set of plates, glasses, and cutlery but we’re talking BASIC. Not at all beautiful. Coloured glassware, layered dishware, elegant metallic flatware, a coloured napkin…these things make a HUGE difference in your overall event design. Don’t forget about the chairs — the basic white folding resin chairs that are available from most tent companies are fine, but they don’t necessarily fit with every aesthetic.

Here are a few more ideas to make your tent wedding the BEST:

• If space allows, incorporate a great lounge area. Many typical venues will have some sort of entry area with couches and chairs where people can relax post-dinner if they aren’t interested in dancing. A tent doesn’t have that opportunity, so build it in to your plans! If your wedding is in summer, place a lounge outside the tent under a tree, rent some great soft seating (here are some of my faves!) — don’t forget about adding a coffee table and end tables for drinks to be placed on! — and create a great atmosphere.

• Make sure your guests are comfortable with either portable heating systems or fans. And if it can be a misting fan, all the better.

  If your wedding is in spring or fall, a clear top tent is your secret weapon: the greenhouse effect created keeps the atmosphere a little more toasty and gives you a little more natural heat.

• Hire pros. Hire hire hire. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard people say, “We’re just going to make it easy and have a tent wedding.” LOL guys. Since when is building a venue from scratch in your own yard easy?? But if you hire the right professionals, it can be both easy AND beautiful. This starts with a planner who is well-versed in tent weddings and knows how to take care of all of the logistics — because there are a lot of them. If you need some recommendations, just ask away :)

Proof of how amazing the misting fans are! On a hot summer day, a misting fan is the little piece of heaven you didn’t know you needed. This one is available through Event LIght.

Planning: Soiree Event Planning | Photo: Brittany Mahood Photography

Find the full gallery from this elegant tent wedding on a private estate here, for some more great inspiration!

LOOKING FOR A WEDDING FLORAL AND EVENT DESIGNER IN WINNIPEG?

Flowers are the best way to make a statement at your wedding. Whether you already have a specific vision or want me to dream up something custom just for you, reach out to Stone House Creative for stunning bridal bouquets, truly unique ceremony backdrops, and beautiful floral centrepieces to create the perfect ambiance for your wedding!

How to Design a Gorgeous Wedding Place Setting

I’m a sucker for a gorgeous place setting.

Photo by Brittany Mahood | Wedding Planning & Design by Feast & Festivities | Florals by Stone House Creative

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You want your guest ambiance to be awesome, for your guests to mingle and enjoy themselves.

But you also want them to have a “home base” for the evening, somewhere for the quieter guests to feel comfortable and for the busy bees to drop off their belongings at before they go shake some hands. So why not put a little energy and attention into that home base?

I’ve always been a sucker for a gorgeous place setting. Layering bits and pieces together creates a well-designed element to your tabletop that sets the overall design apart. It can tell a story to your guests, or give them a taste of what’s to come throughout the evening, or combine form with function. Whatever it is, it’s in these little bits and pieces that your wedding design comes to life.

This is probably one of my favourite place settings from a wedding that I’ve designed the flowers for. Emily from Feast & Festivities does a beautiful job of pulling together the intricate details in a clean, modern way. She actually custom-made the napkins and the accent colour thread is AMAZING, as is the way she folded the napkin across the dinner plate. At this wedding, the meal was served family-style, so the plates were all layered together, which looks beautiful but isn’t necessarily functional for every wedding.

Read on for some more inspiration, at different budget points and with different elements pieced together!

Plus, I’ve put together an entire Pin board with some more gorgeous place settings for you to check out, here!

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Keep it simple, stupid

Planning: Birds of a Feather Events | Flowers: Bows & Arrows | Photo: Apryl Ann

Or not stupid. Didn’t mean to be rude.

I wanted to start this off with a simple place setting, with budget-friendly pieces that don’t require you to add too much in the way of “extras.” If your dinner is going to be served, then it’s coming on a plate. If you don’t want to add the extra expense of a charger plate, then a flat-folded napkin can easily serve the role of plate setting. Add in a menu or place card to simply make a big impact.

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Have some fun with accents

Design: Rhiannon Bosse Celebrations | Photo: Samantha James

A flower, a favour…a mini pineapple?

Whatever your style might be, layering in a fun accent is a great way to bring some personality and design to your place setting. I love this combination of wood charger and smoke grey bread plate because it checks off both the form and the function boxes.

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Creative Use of Colour

Design: Amorology | Florals: Siren Floral Co | Photo: Tanya Menoni

You know I’m all about the colour.

No matter what your palette is, extending it into your place settings will make a massive difference. Winnipeg doesn’t have a ton of options for non-white plates, so consider how you can use napkins, cutlery, coloured glasses, and menu to tie your design together.

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When paper products make all the difference

Planning: Amorette Events | Floral: Siren Floral Co | Photo: Lucy Munoz

Go the extra mile and further personalize each guest’s place setting with perfect stationery pieces.

When I’m setting up a wedding, my favourite thing to do is read the menu and pretend that I’m a guest. I very often literally start to salivate. If your budget allows, placing a beautifully designed menu at each setting is another way to further tie your design throughout the wedding. Place cards are more than just an aesthetic element, though the soft marbling of the card in the image above is breathtaking. Sometimes guests really do need to be told where to sit — especially when you’ve chosen rows of long tables, and it becomes trickier for couples to find seats together.

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Play with the Napkin Fold

Planning: Michelle Lynn Weddings | Photo: Kerry McIntyre

This is another really budget-friendly option.

If you want to add upgrade your place setting without upgrading your budget, simply play around with the napkin fold! Every guest needs a napkin anyways, so even if you’re just using the venue’s basic white or ivory napkin, a knotted napkin can go a long way towards making an interesting impact — as can upgraded cutlery. I love the gold flatware here!

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LOOKING FOR A WEDDING FLORAL and event DESIGNER IN WINNIPEG?

Getting married in 2022? Appointments to plan your dream florals are now available. Click the button below to get started!

Flowers are the best way to make a statement at your wedding. Whether you already have a specific vision or want me to dream up something custom just for you, reach out to Stone House Creative for stunning bridal bouquets, truly unique ceremony backdrops, and beautiful floral centrepieces to create the perfect ambiance for your wedding! 

Planned Perfectly Wedding Rentals Product Shoot

Well, this post has been a long time coming!

Way before Covid, in a world that was simpler and happier, Planned Perfectly asked me to design some flowers for a product shoot to showcase their newest linens and decor rentals. I’m still in love with the products, and Planned Perfectly is ALWAYS my go-to recommendation for couples who are searching for high quality and stylish linen and chair rentals (and word on the street is, they’ve got a few new things up their sleeve…but you’ll have to wait to find out more about that!).

Photos: Luxe Images by Jill | Venue: Manitoba Club

This first linen is their Taupe Panama, paired with wood crossback chairs. This is definitely a favourite combination of mine, particularly for a wedding couple who want something subdued, elegant, and warm. The linen has a beautiful natural texture to it, and fits equally as well in a garden-inspired wedding as in a ballroom setting.

We hung this oversized but lightweight installation of copper and bronze tinted plumosa overtop, but unfortunately, it’s a trick just for the photoshoot. The Manitoba Club ceilings don’t have a way to successfully hang anything from the roof (as with most venues), so we hung it from a pipe and drape structure that was tucked out of the view of the camera. Sorry, guys!

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Next up, we’ve got their Toffee Belize linen, and it’s kind of a tricky colour to nail down! Depending on the lighting and what else is in your palette, this linen can skew light pink, mauve, or a muddy neutral. These pictures give it a particularly pink feel, but it’s not quite this light in person. It’s gorgeous!

I also love that it was paired with two different chair options to show you how a simple chair swap can completely change the visual. If you’re planning an elegant wedding in a ballroom, then the classic gold chivari chairs would be a perfect fit. Or, if you’re hosting a gorgeous tent wedding with a garden aesthetic, I love it paired with the wood crossbacks (these are my favourite chairs!)!

For the floral centrepiece on this table, I wanted to do something lush and low, that felt like it was growing naturally without needing a vase to contain it. I loved this palette — it’s springy without being overly pastel. White tulips and gladiolus blooms were a naturally growing focal point, Queen Anne’s Lace added romantic texture, with a few antique pink carnations and spray roses filling it out. And you can’t miss those beautiful cymbidium orchids — they’re this beautiful subdued creamy tone 😍

We styled the table with beautiful glass beaded charger plates, menus along from my sample stash, from Minted, and groupings of votives (the more, the better, in my opinion!).

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This beauty is the Storm Velvet! And ooo, how I love it. I’m all about the velvet and not just for winter weddings, either (though I do love the icy feel that this look has!). This is a seriously gorgeous blue that pairs really nicely with all kinds of pastel palettes, and also with brighter combinations — it’s surprisingly versatile!

When it comes to your colour palette, I always suggest that you select a foundational colour, a focal colour, and accent colours/metallics. Your focal colour is the one that you want your guests to remember — but you’re not going to splash it EVERYWHERE, otherwise it’ll be overkill and visually exhausting (remember the 90s and early 2000’s weddings where you chose 1 colour and just used it everywhere? Let’s avoid that. It does not look good). Choose a more subtle foundational colour that supports the focal colour. So, you could use this blue velvet as a foundational colour to support a more vibrant palette of coral, peach, and orange. If you had a coral linen and coral flowers and coral candles and coral menus, your wedding would be visually disgusting. Foundational colour + focal colour + accent colours = visual beauty!

I’m a recent convert to loving these clear Napolean chairs! For the centrepiece here, we paired Planned Perfectly’s white pillar candlestick trios along with my smoke glass votives that I tucked some simple quicksand roses into. The variation in height and texture is really nice!

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I’m a huge fan of sweetheart tables, and this one features Planned Perfectly’s Silver Velvet linen (which is really a soft grey, and super pretty!). It’s paired with Trend Decor’s blush velvet settee and I love how feminine this design is.

The place setting details include a grey satin napkin, knotted for a modern feel, a pink menu (also from Minted), and copper charger plates. I love the way the copper and silver play together, especially paired with the hanging copper plumsa installation and my smoke glass votives (here I’ve done 2 sizes of votives, with both floral and candles in them, for a bit of visual variety).

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LOOKING FOR A WEDDING FLORAL DESIGNER IN WINNIPEG?

Getting married in 2022? Wedding flower appointments are now available. Click the button below to get on my wait list!

Flowers are the best way to make a statement at your wedding. Whether you already have a specific vision or want me to dream up something custom just for you, reach out to Stone House Creative for stunning bridal bouquets, truly unique ceremony backdrops, and beautiful floral centrepieces to create the perfect ambiance for your wedding! 

Minimal Mid-Century Modern Inspired Tent Wedding

Technically I was supposed to take this weekend off…but when I got the email from Emily of Feast & Festivities asking if I’d be available, and I caught a glimpse of the fun design board, a thrill sparked my fingertips into typing that yes, I was available!

Jess and Donny’s wedding was one of my 2019 highlights. Creative uses of colour, cheerful design elements, and that chic mid-century modern inspiration brought this clear-top tent wedding to life!

One of the first things that I was told was the overall design was to have a mid-century modern influence, and I immediately thought that an arm bouquet would be a perfect way to do that. Jess was down for something unique and interesting, so I got to work on selecting some juicy blooms to play off the cheerful colour palette.

Bridal Bouquet Ingredients: locally grown ranunculus, delphinium, and snapdragons, with campanella garden roses, billy balls, and oncidium orchids.

This is easily one of my favourite ceremony designs I’ve worked on. It’s pretty simple, but when Emily came up with the idea for me to design flowers both on top of the clear pedestals and inside them, I was pumped.

Jess and Donny got engaged in Hawaii, so they wanted to incorporate a touch of tropical flair. We used some sago palm in the large arrangements, and made Jess a white dendrobium orchid lei and Donny got a traditional Hawaiian ti leaf lei. The leaves were supposed to be more green, but the darker tone looked awesome with his suit so it was a happy mistake!

My favourite thing is that they wanted the flowers to really do the talking, so they actually stood behind the arrangements!

When working with a tighter budget, it’s a great idea to go simple overall while introducing a few major statement pieces. For Jess and Donny, that was the ceremony florals, which were repurposed to the seating display outside the entrance to the tent, along with a garland swagged along the top of the tent entrance.

How amazing does this set up look? I love the neon orange acrylic, and Jess actually designed the decals herself and applied them to the acrylic sheets. She repeated this method with the table numbers and bar signage.

Another favourite design element was the neon orange carnation installation suspended above the head table. The goal was to bring a punch of that unexpected bright orange, and the mechanics of this piece were actually quite easy but it was really time-consuming to create. I’d do it again in a heart beat, though, because it turned out so cool!

I also put together a feathery and lightweight plumosa garland for the photo booth aka Donny’s VW Westfalia that he’d been restoring.

Office fan, anyone? I love how they incorporated a few little touches from their favourite show throughout the day — from the Pam & Jim snapshots, to the place setting above, reserved for “Assistant to the Regional Manager.”

So all in all, I’m pretty glad I decided to work this weekend instead of taking it off 😂

Brittany Mahood ~ FEast & Festivities ~ Stone House Creative ~ THat First Spark ~ Planned Perfectly ~ C&T Rentals ~ JP Hoe ~ cielo’s Garden ~ JP MEdiaWorks ~ Truvelle ~ ALdo FormalWear ~ Tiopo & Co ~ Fifth ~ Urban Prairie Cuisine ~ Sweet Impressions ~ Oh Doughnuts ~ Marry Me, Hunnie

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LOOKING FOR WEDDING FLOWERS IN WINNIPEG?

Getting married in 2022? Appointments to plan your dream florals are now available. Click the button below to get started!

Flowers are the best way to make a statement at your wedding. Whether you already have a specific vision or want me to dream up something custom just for you, reach out to Stone House Creative for stunning bridal bouquets, truly unique ceremony backdrops, and beautiful floral centrepieces to create the perfect ambiance for your wedding! 

Reveal: Playful and Crisp Wedding Style Editorial

Helllllo playful colour! Today I’m going to walk you through the execution of this editorial I created over the summer. While a photo shoot does not come together in the same way that a real wedding does, I go through much the same process with a lot of the behind-the-scenes design planning.

Right from the onset of a personal project like this, I usually have a pretty good idea of what I want to do. When I’m working on wedding flowers, I also usually have a clear picture of what I want to do for you. But when I’m working on event design for a couple, it’s more of a process of pulling ideas out of you, then teasing them in my mind to see how I can expand on it.

Yesterday, I spoke all about my event design services and my design philosophies.
If this resonates with you, I'd love to speak with you about coming on board your wedding vendor team in the larger capacity of event designer. Read more here!

Vibe

I always begin event design projects by considering the vibe I (or the client) want to create. With this editorial being a project for myself, a few words kept coming to me: playful, cheerful, crisp. I knew I wanted to evoke a sense of happiness and light-heartedness (and I planned this before Covid hit...who knew how badly I'd need this!!).

To achieve this, I started with the colour palette: lavender, peach, and coral (some of my go-to’s!) and then surprised myself with the addition of yellow and orange. I'm so glad that I stepped out of my comfort zone (orange has historically been my least favourite colour, but no longer!), because these two brought the citrusy fresh hints that I needed to break up the femininity of the rest of the palette.

Stationery

Your wedding invitations are one of the first projects that we tackle under event design. The stationery sets the tone and can help to "brand" your wedding -- to give you a definable style and visual direction. For this suite, I asked Robin to explore a design that would feel playful and colourful, with clean, modern lines. I knew I wanted touches of colour, but a good amount of white space to balance out the full palette used elsewhere.

She suggested that we use a vellum outer envelope, to show off the flirty pieces inside, and also added a lot of visual interest through the use of different coloured stocks, the rounded edge, and a tall and narrow menu card and place setting on the table.

Florals

I planned two completely different sets of floral ingredients — a spring set (for my original shoot date), and a summer set. I lucked out with my August shoot date, because I was able to incorporate many of my favourite locally grown summer flowers!

Locally grown flowers have the BEST colour variations, with flecks and speckles that perfectly blend a palette and simply aren't possible with wholesale flowers.

The Tablescape

Full florals in the centre of the table, coloured taper and votive candles, gold-dipped flatware combined with clean, modern place settings…Designing a tablescape is all about layering together varied elements to create a unique, personalized look.

I wanted a clean, minimal base for all my colour, so the foundation of white linens with a white tulle topper was perfect.

The Cake

This cake!

I sent Jenna a really pathetic sketch, after having this idea of incorporating both hand-painted flowers and 3D sugar flowers that would move in from the outsides of the cake. I knew I wanted to create some sort of floral piece encircling the cake. I explained this haphazard idea to Jenna and she took it and made it 1 million percent better. This cake is so stunning! It felt fresh, unique, and playful.

The original plan for the cake was so different. This just goes to show you that sometimes, sitting on an idea and seeing where it goes can be a very good thing!

The same goes for your wedding planning: Don't feel like you need to make every decisions or have every answer at the same time.
Some ideas just need time to come together.

I’m so grateful to everyone who shared their talents to be a part of this editorial. I originally started brainstorming this before the first Covid shutdown, and at that point I was just going to focus on a tablescape. Esther suggested that I add a model, and I’m SO glad I followed her advice! One of my favourite details from this editorial was the ensembles created by Maison Corazon for the bride — they could not have been more perfect.

The way this entire project came together was so life-giving and exciting.

Esther Funk Photography ~ stone house creative ~ Planned Perfectly ~ C&T Rentals ~ Trend Rentals & Decor ~ Robin Egg blue design ~ Maison corazon ~ Jenna Rae Cakes ~ Jessica Kmiec Artistry ~ Beauty by B Fey ~ Prairie Clay ~ Mokada Custom Jewelry

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LOOKING FOR A WEDDING FLORAL AND EVENT DESIGNER IN WINNIPEG?

Getting married in 2022? Appointments to plan your dream florals are now available. Click the button below to get started!

Flowers are the best way to make a statement at your wedding. Whether you already have a specific vision or want me to dream up something custom just for you, reach out to Stone House Creative for stunning bridal bouquets, truly unique ceremony backdrops, and beautiful floral centrepieces to create the perfect ambiance for your wedding!