Spring is here! And do you know what that means? Spring brings the arrival of the wedding season, when newly-engaged couples begin to think seriously about renting venues, picking a florist, tasting sample desserts, building the wedding dinner menu, saying “yes” to the dress, and all of the rest.

From now through late autumn, wedding season reigns. And if you took the plunge over the winter and you put a ring on it, or you said yes to the proposal, then you have some serious choices to make to get ready for your big day. And first off, congratulations! Secondly, one of the biggest choices you will have to make, now that you’ve picked your life partner, is to decide where to host your big bash. We at Tent Guys have some great ideas for you that emphasize cost efficiency, flexibility, and a dash of fantasy.

Efficiency: Affordable Venue Ideas

Choosing a tent for your wedding day can be one of the most cost-effective choices you make, in terms of planning your wedding day, and we do the setup and teardown of the tent. We will set it up the day before and we will tear it down after your event concludes. We can help you to pick the best sized tent for your guests’ needs and we can dialogue about pricing costs for the rental. If you desire us to set up the tables and chairs, we are happy to do it (an added fee is required for this service, but it is nominal). And we can work with your wedding planner and coordinator, acting on your behalf. Have a look at our gallery of images and see the scope of the kinds of events, which our tents are used for, and also grab a few ideas from what others have done to decorate their rented tents.

Tent Guys has been in this business a long time and not only are we eager to answer your questions and talk through possibilities with you, but we are also more than able to discuss some ideas we have seen used in our tents for our prior clients’ events.

Flexible Space: Customize the Location

Most people immediately, when thinking of a wedding venue, consider a traditional brick-and-mortar space. While that is all well and good, the drawbacks can be something you wouldn’t immediately consider—but you should. When you lock yourself into renting a venue, you also lock yourself into the physical space you’ve rented, and you have to make-do with the size of the building. What happens if you rent a space that cannot accommodate all the people you invite, or what if you want to change up the amount of space you will need for your big day?

Renting a tent gives you flexibility that a brick-and-mortar space cannot give you. Need to upsize the tent? Not a problem. Decide that you want to trim the guest list and go smaller than when you first started looking? Easily adjusted. Chat through things with your fiancé and realize that a wedding closer to your future partner’s hometown is better than near yours—relocation isn’t an issue at all.

The flexibility that renting a big, beautiful tent for your big day is quite simple: it can easily be adjusted to fit your changing needs. So, that golf course you’ve had your eye on, or the winery you visited in the autumn, or grandma’s big back yard in the Low Country can all easily become viable venue sites for your big day. The tent comes to you, so your options about where to throw your big bash become far more open-ended. Find the space, we set up the tent. Easily done.

The Fantasy Space: What Can Drapery Do for You?

So you’ve rented a tent, but what will it look like on the inside? You’ve chosen the perfect spot by the water, or nestled among trees, or in the clearing of your favorite winery, but how fancy can you make things inside that tent—so that the beautiful landscape in which the tent sets is outdone by the whimsical fantasy found inside the tent? Tent Guys have some great ideas about what we can do to make the décor stunning, so that you have the perfect atmosphere set up for the best day of your life.

First, let’s talk pipes, poles, and drapery. What is that, you might ask? And what do poles and pipes and drapery do for my plans? The beauty of hanging drapery from the poles and pipes (the structure of the tent itself) is that it is totally customizable. The drapery can be set up anywhere, and it can be arranged in numerous configurations, in order to create the interior spaces you desire.

So, with a tent rental, you can think of the kinds of tent drapery available: tent pole draping, swag draping, flat draping, and ceiling liners. These can be configured in various ways, and according to a color palette of your choosing, to achieve the look and feel you want your wedding tent space to carry.

Essentially, we can dress up any set of drapery configurations inside the tent—in a wide range of colors. So, a backdrop behind the stage can be set up so that your guests aren’t staring at grassy hills beyond the tent but at a beautiful curtain of deep ink blue, offsetting the silver accents adorning the tables and chairs and other décor under the tent. Want to build a small gallery, where you can display photos of you and your new spouse, cataloguing the moment you met to the day you said yes? We can configure some pipes and drapery to make that walk-through gallery, giving your guests the chance to see the evolution of your story, from first date to first wedding dance.

What about creating lounge areas? It’s common observation that people move about from table to table, lingering here and there in their chats. But wouldn’t it be nice to have a spot closer to a living room, where your guests can sit and chat as if at home? Piping and drapery can cordon off spaces and make lounge areas! Just rent some furniture—tables, couches, chairs—to furnish the space and suddenly your guests have a space where they can relax, lounge, sip their cocktails, and laugh over old memories. All we need to do is plot out where under the tent you want it, put up the piping to make the temporary walls, and drape the colorful fabrics that will set the mood for the lounge.

And what about what’s above your head? We can set up ceiling liner drapery, descending from the tent poles, to create a celestial space just above your heads! Draped fabric, twinkle lights, strings of garland, bunting of silver-dollar eucalyptus—most anything can be hung from pipes or tent poles, to make a fantastical space in the air above the tables. You design and order it, in consultation with your wedding planner, and we can do the rest at minimal price. The sky is the limit when it comes to what can be done. And the simple elegance of adding a gathered tent liner to the ceiling of the tent is that it can work to cover-up the structure of the tent itself while also giving your wedding space an unique, customized look.

Want chandeliers and sprays of cherry blossoms, so that your tent strikes a whimsical look? Or what about cut-crystal chandeliers suspended above big floral table settings, to set a more elegant tone? Desire to hang candles in little glass balls, so it looks like groupings of fireflies floating in the air? Want to suspend Chinese paper lanterns and create a soft, tender ambience? If you can dream it up, we can hang it from the poles and piping! And trust us—wedding planners have come up with some great ideas about what can be done to make the interior as magical as you really want it to be.

Eclectic, elegant, whimsical, themed, or Southern charm—whatever you wish it to be, making use of piping, drapery, and suspensions from the tent poles above can achieve the fantasy space you’ve been dreaming about. How do we achieve these looks? Simply put, we drape all the side and center poles in drapery to give your wedding tent that finished, thoughtful, and elegant touch you want it to have. We can customize the color palette to meet the overall look you desire for your big day. We can open the tent walls (or leave them off entirely) and drape everything in colorful fabrics that will provide the look and feel you desire. That means that, up to a few weeks before your wedding, you can make adjustments to the overall design décor of the wedding tent.

And what if you want a large main tent and then an adjacent, side tent for creating more intimate gatherings, such as a lounge or a private space for immediate family? Easily done! And you can customize each tent’s poling and drapery to fit the needs you have for each space. Drapery, ceiling liners, and makeshift poles with fabric can easily give your tent space a curated, customized, and exquisitely detailed look—far more than what you might be able to achieve with the interior of a brick-and-mortar venue.

And what’s the best part of renting a tent? It’s a blank canvas—you can do anything with it! You can make it as elegant or as simple as you wish, or you can make it something in between. So, in closing, here are a few simple ideas to consider for how you might utilize the possibilities that drapery affords you, when designing your fantasy-wedding venue.

1. Think about texture. You can use sheer drapes or solid, thick ones. Velvet can juxtapose nicely with chintz material to create a playful and elegant look. Have fun with thinking outside of the box when it comes to texture and fabric selection!
2. Consider color. Perhaps, instead of doing just two colors, add a third to the pair and make the tent really pop with a trio. It is great to think in complementary ways—ink blue with silver, for example—but a third element really helps to glam things up a bit, and also add a bit of surprise. Inky blue and shiny silver could be easily offset with an ivory or pure white accent.
3. Don’t just do solid colors, but patterns too! What about two solids and one patterned? Patterning brings together color and texture to create depth and nuance. That’s where the fantasy and the romance live, in the unexpected choices you make in setting the atmosphere. Add drama with patterns, or by weaving together two different fabrics or colors!

Call Tent Guys today to set up an initial consultation. And also hit up your wedding coordinator and talk about options, color palettes, and hunt the web together for ideas. Together, we can all create the wedding of your dreams this spring.