No matter how beautiful your choice of wedding venue, most brides want to add some additional 
decorations to make it their own. Whether you are aiming for vintage glamour or retro cool, here are six tips on making sure your decorations work well with your chosen venue.
-
Make sure your decorations are the right scale for your wedding venue
Your single stem red roses in tall vases may be beautiful, but they will get lost on large round tables in a great hall. Equally, gigantic flower arrangements under suspended chandeliers will look a little over the top in a small intimate restaurant. If you are hiring a large venue, make sure your decorations are big enough to make an impact.
-
Choose your colour scheme to suit your venue décor
You may have your heat set on the recent trend for hot pink and aqua, but if you have booked an elegant stately home decorated in red and gold, that is going to clash horribly.
Brides that choose a minimalist venue have the advantage that they can pick any colour palette to decorate it, but if your venue is highly coloured, try to choose muted shades of some of those colours for your wedding theme and decorations.
-
Focus on key areas of your wedding venue
When you visit your wedding venue you might have great ideas about decorating every inch of it, but unless your wedding budget is limitless, spreading your decorations out around the whole venue will just reduce their impact.
The key focus at a wedding reception is usually the dining tables so make sure they are immaculately dressed. After that you could consider adding decorations around the top table, in the entrance, and wherever the group photographs are going to be taken.
-
Run your decorating ideas past your venue
Even if you feel your decorations are fairly basic, it is always a good idea to check them with your venue to make sure you haven’t missed anything. Candles are a popular choice for table centres as they give a romantic glow, but many venues, especially older venues, don’t allow these for safety reasons. If you want to suspend anything from the ceiling such as paper lanterns, chandeliers, or bird cages, check with your venue that this is possible.
-
Keep your decorations practical for your venue
While you are letting your imagination run wild, don’t forget the practicalities of decorating your wedding venue. You might want to bring the outdoors indoors with potted plants and trees in every corner, but your guests will still need room to move around. Towering table centres can be spectacular, but check whether the setup of your tables will allow guests to talk to each other around them. If your dream is to have the entire wedding lit by fairy lights, make sure your guests will still be able to see what they are eating.
-
Get inspiration from your venue
Wedding decorations don’t just have to be flowers and balloons; finding something truly unique to decorate your reception can make it memorable and personal, and your venue is a good place to find inspiration.
Perhaps you have hired a sea front venue; look for decorations incorporating sea shells, sand, miniature boats or driftwood. If your venue is jazz club, hire vintage saxophones and decorate them with flowers and greenery. If you are holding a garden wedding make arrangements out of old fashioned watering cans, flower pots, or wooden wheelbarrows.