8 Cost Effective Ways to Spruce Up Your Garden for a Home Wedding

8 Cost Effective Ways to Spruce Up Your Garden for a Home Wedding

A garden wedding can be a great option for any budget, but making your backyard look picture perfect for your special day means planning ahead. If you’re strapped for ideas on how to spruce up your garden for the ultimate outdoor ceremony follow these tips.

1. Use a professional caterer

Depending on your budget, a buffet or finger food style menu done by a good caterer can halve your food costs. A buffet is cost efficient as it eliminates the cost of table service. Garden experts will also recommend a buffet as it can be customised to suit any home or backyard size. Provides guests with the opportunity to network and creates a communal atmosphere. Not to mention that a buffet will create a warm, communal atmosphere by allowing guests to mingle and network rather than be restricted to a table. With a more casual garden setting, quality food service that matches the atmosphere is more important (and ultimately more cost effective) than trying to shoehorn plate service into your wedding plans.

2. Bathroom breaks

Amongst planning the food, the flowers and the outfits, bathrooms are something couples may forget when planning a home wedding. Even if you have a large backyard space or entertaining area, your home is going to have limited bathrooms.

With more than 100 merry guests throwing back champagne and toasting to the success of your marriage, you’re putting yourself (and your friends and family) in an awkward position.

One solution is to consider renting a portable toilet. It can be more classy than your usual port-a-loo, and make the event run that much smoother.

3. Share your wish list

Sprucing up your garden doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Make a wish list of the bits and bobs you’d like to make your dream wedding come true and share it with family and friends. You never know what people might have lying around. You can also search online for good deals, garage sales and secondhand items that can be made new again with a bit of elbow grease.

4. Buy new plants in the off season

Like fruit and veg, plants are seasonal, and you can find great deals on the plants you want if you have time to purchase in the off season. Cristen Conger recommends shoppping at the end of growing season will allow you to find plants on clearance that are still healthy. It will also give you plenty of time to plan your garden wedding look and layout before the ceremony.

5. Perfect the patio

If you’ve been dreaming of a patio area to complement your garden space a wedding could be just the prompt you need to start making that dream a reality.

The perfect patio is a significant garden feature that accentuates the back yard without dominating it. It’s easy to access, light, breezy and always inviting. Adorn it with paper lanterns and consider coloured glass, pots and flowers to match your wedding themes.

6. Planning ahead with plants and flowers

One benefit of hosting your wedding on at home is you can start planning the garden layout early.

Rather than wait until the month before and spending money on expensive landscaping, you can start making small adjustments over time. Consider the following:

• What kind of flowers will be in season, can you care for them in time for them to bloom?

• Are there places that need to be trimmed back or tidied up?

• What about your lawns, are they up to scratch?

You can always hire a gardener in the lead up to the wedding, but taking care of your garden early will make that special day just a little bit more special, especially when it comes to photographs.

7. Add colour to your backyard

Flowers are the obvious choice, but there’s a number of DIY options that will make your wedding sing with vibrancy and colour.

• According to Garden Lovers Club a colourful water feature is a simple yet effective way of creating a vibrant focal point in your venue. If you consider yourself a DIY maverick try repurposing urns into a colourful water feature.

• Tin can planters: A splash of paint can turn any old tin can into a bright and thematically on point planter for flowers.

• Section cushions: Offset the natural greenery of your garden with colourful cushions to mark out eating areas. You can even match them to flowers in the garden to make photographs really pop.

8. Think about photography

Your wedding will be an event to remember, but ask any bride or groom and they’re just as likely to tell you it went by in a flash. That’s why photography is so important for any wedding. If you’re planning a garden event, you’ve got that much more control over how the photographs will turn out.

• Hire a great photographer: One that’s experienced in shooting weddings and outdoors. When you find one you click with, walk your photographer through your layout of the ceremony space so they know what vantage points they can use on the day.

• Match decor: Everything from plants and flowers to cushions, soft furnishings and cutlery. If you’re not confident in what will look good on film, consult your photographer on their experience with similar events, their knowledge can be indispensable.