Draping a church with fabric

Whenever I see a wedding in the movies or on TV (I’m looking at you, Khloe and Kim Kardashian), they always look like such elaborate affairs. For us folks who live in reality, we know that walking down the aisle probably won’t include angels hanging from the ceiling (Madea’s Family Reunion) or fireworks going off as you say “I do” (Bridesmaids). But there’s gotta be a way to dress up a church to make it prettier for a wedding right? Well, one answer would be flowers, and another would be draping. I like to use a combination of both.

Now, please let me be clear about this — most churches won’t let you do all this to their sanctuary. This happened to be the church I grew up in, so my mom had a lot of pull, plus we knew all the rules — no tape on the pews. The front of the church is easy to drape because there are a lot of points where I can hook the fabric, like microphones and corners. But, this does take time — whenever I had to drape this church, I always did it the night before and it almost always took at least two hours.

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Church and ceremony pew decorations

Decorating pews for the ceremony can be difficult. Not all wedding ceremonies are performed in churches, and sometimes churches are the most difficult places to decorate of all. A lot of churches, especially Catholic churches in my experience, do not allow tape on their pews of any kind, so trying to attach some sort of decoration on pews usually ends up with a wrestling match between you and some rubber bands. There are also clips, but those slip off easily, and you don’t want a flower arrangement slipping off as you walk down the aisle in your full-skirted wedding dress.

Above is a picture from a wedding in which I was a bridesmaid a few years ago.

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Going to the chapel? Don’t forget the decorations!

It seems that when times get tough, we look for more meaning in our lives, especially in big life events like getting married. At least, that’s what I’m gathering from a recent Christian Science Monitor article.

While engaged couples bemoan a recession that’s forcing them to scale back their spending, a different conversation is also bubbling: Will the economic downturn help focus attention on the religious importance of the wedding ceremony or even reacquaint some with a faith tradition from which they’ve drifted?

“You have to ask yourself what’s important,” Weir says. “How many decorations do you really need? We are tied to the Catholic Church. If getting married is a leap of faith, than this is the place to do it.”

If that’s the case, then I have a few pictures to show you of churches I’ve decorated. Oddly enough, while I’ve decorated my fair share of churches, I failed to take pictures of most of them. In my seven years of snapping digital photos, I think these photos are all I’ve got of church decorations.

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Pew decorations that will make your jaw drop

Maybe its just me, but do you ever just look at pictures of weddings in Flickr? I do. Often, that’s how I find simply spectacular wedding decorations. Sometimes I get down time at work (shhhh) and just surf around checking out flowers, churches, receptions, gazebos….oh, I’m the only one? Hee. Oh well.

Wedding in Syria. Photo by Flickr’s noble4

At any rate, I have found some spectacular pictures, from around the world, really. Seems that we Americans are kind of stinting with our weddings, compared to Brazilians or Syrians. Above, the flowers are mostly, carnations and Gerber daisies, but check out those elaborate branch lamps. But it wasn’t enough to just have those elaborate lamp/vases, they’re also entwined with what looks like English netting. Amazing.

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Our Lady Of Angels

You’re looking at a picture of the courtyard of the Our Lady Of Angels Cathedral in downtown L.A., where I helped my mom with a pretty big deal kinda wedding. Weddings at the cathedral in general are kind of a big deal anyway, since I think the waiting list for the cathedral is, like, two years long and really expensive to boot. This particular view is from the second-floor conference center, across from the main cathedral sanctuary.

Of course, the difference between other Catholic churches and the cathedral is that there are any number of tourists at the cathedral at any given day. They watched my brother and I eagerly as we carted equipment over to the sanctuary in preparation for a 10 a.m. wedding.

Oh, yeah, here’s another reason – the sheer size of this church.

I know you’re wondering why I said the wedding was a big deal – well, it was because this was apparently the first time the Cathedral allowed draping on the altar.

Here’s a close up. Yep, that’s what I do. It’s not as easy as it might seem, and it took me years to figure out how to do all this in less than 30 minutes.

Trinity and I both work night shifts on Saturdays, so doing working with my mom is definitely out of love, especially on Trinity’s end. He so loves his morning sleep…. This picture is of him tying the sashes – which were bubble-gum pink, by the way – onto the seat covers, all of which were provided by mom. We fought over this picture right after I took it.

More pictures…

This is a sweetheart table, which my mom insists on at almost every wedding reception we do, although some hotels and reception sites still don’t understand the concept. My mom really does the sweetheart tables up – for this one, besides the draping and the flowers, she scattered rose petals on it and put special, custom-made seat covers on the chairs.
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