Wedding Decoration Ideas for Your Ceremony and Reception

Your choice will depend on your overall wedding budget, the size of your wedding and the amount of time you have to put towards decorating.

If you’re really stuck for wedding decorations and ideas, you should come up with a general theme for your wedding.

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This could be based on the time of year, the location of your wedding or a shared interest between you and your fiancé and should give you a color scheme to work to inspire your wedding decoration ideas.

For example, if you choose a winter wedding theme, you’ll be using whites and blues, or white and red, while a beach wedding might have more blues, yellows and oranges.

The theme will also help you pick out your flowers, as you can match by shape or color, or by both (See summer and fall flower ideas).

Flowers play a big part in any wedding decoration ideas, as you’ll need them for your bridal bouquets as well as possible accessories for wedding dresses and reception table decorations.

Choosing a good theme will give you some inspiration for the symbols and motifs you will want to use. A fall wedding should have many leaves as the central image while a garden wedding will use objects like branches and grass to give a nature feel to the wedding.

Once you have your theme, you need to think about what will need decorating at your wedding. Each of the following will need slightly different wedding decoration ideas under the umbrella of your theme:

The decorations you use for the actual ceremony will change depending on the location of your wedding. See the decorations for church wedding ceremonies page.

Flowers and ribbons will suit a church wedding ceremony, while you may find that nature takes care of the decoration for an outdoor ceremony.

If you’re renting a space for your ceremony, you should always discuss your decoration requirements with the managers.

Click the photo to the left to see the wedding ceremony and reception decorations eGuide.

The cocktail hour location

The cocktail hour location will be near your wedding reception location. While the decorations should tie in to your wedding reception venue decorations, keep them much simpler. Coordinating linens, flowers on the bar and candles on the tables will suffice.

The main focal areas when decorating for wedding receptions will be the head table, where the families of the bride and groom will sit, the cake table, the buffet (if you have one) and the dance floor.

The head table should be well lit and carry the colors and symbols of the wedding. It should also be the most elaborately decorated table in the room, so put a lot of your energy there.

The cake table should be slightly elevated and again well lit to best show off the features of the cake. Finally, be sure to light the dance floor well.

The car that comes to pick you up at the end of your wedding day gives your guests a chance to not only to see you off on your honeymoon but also to wish well in your new married life.

The car can depart from theme, and traditionally it has ribbons stretching back from the hood ornament (tip: silk flowers are best for car decorations).

You could choose to have tin cans tied to the rear bumper or the words “Just Married” painted on the back windshield. You’ll achieve a nice symmetry if the colors match your theme, but it’s not essential.

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