Affordable, Easy to Decorate Wedding Venues

Some of the most inexpensive and practical wedding venues are likely to be found right in your neighborhood.  Though they may not be the most elaborate locations, you can save so much money by having your wedding ceremony and/or reception at a local banquet hall.  Many of these locations cost around $600 to rent for an entire day.  To find rentable banquet halls in your area, look-up some of the following in your neighborhood phonebook or on the internet:

-VFW Halls

-Knights of Columbus Halls

-American Foreign Legion Halls

-Elks Club/Lodge

-Fireman’s Halls

-Lions Clubs

-Other local banquet halls like Women’s/Men’s Clubs, Italian American Clubs, Irish American Clubs, etc.

Now, just because banquet halls are known to be more plain in terms of decor, this doesn’t mean that you can’t make the venue your own.  In fact, the lack of embellishments and decorations may provide you with even more of an opportunity for creativity and personalization.  Here are a few ideas to spruce up these affordable venues:

For the walls – Using balloons to cover your venue walls is very inexpensive and pretty quick if you can get your bridesmaids to help you!  Just blow up (preferably with a pump) as many balloons as you can use.  Tie several balloons to a string of fishing line and attach the line to the wall using removable hooks, tape or a staple gun.

Another easy but very elegant idea is to use fabric to drape the walls.  You’ll need large amounts of fabric but low-cost fabrics like tulle look amazing.  Again, you can hang the fabric with removable hooks or staple guns and add some flare with ribbon.  Try hanging the fabric in sections, from the top of the ceiling to the floor, then bunch the fabric in the middle and tie ribbons matching your wedding colors around the bundles.  You can hang the fabric in other ways as well, just experiment to find something that looks pretty.

For the ceiling – Ceilings of rooms often go without decor but decorating the ceiling is a simple way to spruce up the entire area.  It’s very easy to create a tented ceiling and again, inexpensive depending on the type of fabric that you use.  Tulle is a great option for ceiling decor as well as for the walls.  Find an embroidery hoop at your local craft store and glue or staple the ends of the fabric around it, so the fabric drapes down.  Hang the hoop from the center (or off-center if you’d like, perhaps over the wedding party’s table) of the room and attach the other ends of the fabric to the area where the ceiling meets the wall, but let them hang loosely so they create that tented look.  Prior to hanging the embroidery hoop, you can dress up the fabric by hot gluing silk flowers, faux crystals or other adornments.

In addition to or instead of the fabric tent, hanging decorations also add a great ambiance to a room.  You can find sytrofoam spheres of all sizes at your local craft store.  Cover them with silk flowers, crystals, seashells, or anything else you can find to go along with the theme of your wedding.  Attach fishing line to the spheres and hang them from the ceiling of your banquet hall; try hanging them at different heights for a modern feel.

For the entire room – Different colored uplighting is becoming very popular at receptions and for good reasons! Lighting gives the room a contemporary, classy feel and is relatively inexpensive, but it may require a little bit of web searching to find the best prices.  Many spotlights or uplighting kits run around $60 for 3 like these and then you can purchase gel colored covers if you’d like; they’re reusable and can be cut to fit just about any spotlight. Cheaplights.com has a huge selection of colors.  Keep in mind, you can hire a professional to do your lighting for you, but it’s usually cheaper if you can order the materials and set it up yourself!

These are just a few ideas to add your own flare to your wedding venue, especially if it’s low on decor to begin with.

If  you have had, or are planning to have your wedding ceremony or reception at a banquet hall, feel free to share your decorating ideas below!