Wedding Gazette

Renaissance Wedding Decorations

By Jennifer Baumann

Adorn your reception hall with heavy wood, hand-painted brightly colored banners, and lots of candlelight and grapevine wreaths when you decorate for your Medieval/Renaissance wedding.

Romantic Candlelight

Place votive candles on each table in golden votive cups or plain glass cups tied with tendrils of ivy. If your reception hall allows it, line serving tables with long, romantic tapers. Or, ask if you can place real candles in those chandeliers.

Wood Accents

Renaissance and Medieval furniture's signature mark was heavy, dark wood. If your reception hall cannot provide you with ornate chairs and banquet tables, look into renting a special head table, long and heavy, and two throne-like carved chairs for you and your groom to preside over the party like a king and queen. Other special wooden touches: perhaps your church has an ornate altar that can be used, or a Renaissance-style kneeling bench on which the two of you can kneel.

Cloth Banners

Another decoration specific to these time periods are the cloth banners on which hand-written Latin phrases were written. Make your own banners for the church or reception hall out of heavy fabric in rich colors, declaring words of love and devotion, or perhaps adorned with hand-drawn symbols of marriage like doves, hearts, or orange blossoms.

Grapvine

This bony-looking branch was shaped into wreaths to decorate the doors of the church and reception hall. Place grapevine wreaths (found easily at your local craft store) on doors and decorate with long, flowing ribbons, inlay with orange blossoms or red roses, or weave ivy or rosemary through the branches.

Gold Leafing

Add a special touch to votive cups, place cards, and banners with gold leafing. Purchase an easy gold leafing kit at your local craft store, and go wild with adding its shimmery elegance to your wedding decorations.