Fabric Wedding Arch

 

There are a million different ideas for wedding ceremony arches and backdrops out there… and they are all beautiful and unique!! When I first started looking around, I was really drawn to the gorgeous floral options, especially the big circular arrangements filled with eucalyptus, peonies, and every other flower you could ever want. But, like many people, we decided we’d rather spend ridiculous amounts of money on things that actually make sense – a house we can enjoy living in for many years to come, saving for all the fancy food we feed our pets… yaknow, the essentials! Hehe.

So, after a bit of researching I decided that a floral arch was not going to be our way to go. Plus, our ceremony was taking place in the ampitheater area of Godric Grove, in Elings Park. Elings is a gorgeous mountaintop park venue in Santa Barbara, and the ampitheater looks out over the foothills so the view is really nice and naturally stunning. Plus, there’s a conveniently large oak tree right there on the stage which got me thinking…

We decided a fabric arch, draped over the tree branch, was the way to go. It ended up being incredibly striking in the photos, and couldn’t have been cheaper to make – that’s right, it was free!! A friend of mine was getting rid of some old curtains, which were a nice off white linen. I think they were 84 inch panels but I’m not totally sure. I only had a rough mental estimate of the branch height, so I made sure that the drape was more than long enough to reach up, over, and back down again. The process was pretty simple – I started by ripping all of the edges off the curtains, so that every edge would have the same rough/rustic look. Then I ripped each curtain in half length wise, which gave me 8 long pieces of fabric. I sewed these pieces end to end, doubling over on the seams to make sure there would be no gap even if there was some tension on the fabric.

The hardest part, honestly, was hanging the drape itself! This involved an exciting feat of ladder acrobatics and my best friend’s husband stepping in to risk his life on the top step while trying to throw a huge pile of fabric over a branch far overhead… it involved a lot of laughing, some gasping, and we all walked away in one piece. Luckily mom was there to supervise.

Once we got the fabric over the branch, it just took a little tweaking to get the length how we liked it and we let the excess fabric pool on the ground which helped keep it in place even with the breeze picking up later in the day. Let me know if this idea inspires you to make a fabric arch of your own for your special day. I’d love to see it!!