Unique Wedding Ideas - Personalized Wedding Arch

How to Customize the Bridal Arch for the Bride and Groom

Jul 7, 2009

A bridal arch at the altar is always beautiful, but when that arch is a true reflection of the bride and groom, it offers more than beauty. It offers memories.

Bridal arches are used in every type of wedding setting. Whether located inside, or in the great outdoors, the arch can add a unique loveliness to the occasion, especially when it is customized.

The Traditional Wedding Floral Arch

Since photographs were invented, they’ve immortalized images of brides and grooms exchanging vows beneath a wedding arch. An arch fosters a feeling of closeness and provides an exquisite frame for the wedding couple. It is also symbolic, for like the wedding ring, an arch signifies eternity and is considered a gateway to something new.

Bridal arches are customarily made of wood or metal and are decorated with greenery and flowers. But an arch can be so much more. It can reflect a bride and groom’s interests, become a subtle tribute or foster the uniting of two families.

The Personal Bridal Arch

Any passion can be expressed on a wedding arch. While most brides and grooms would cringe at the idea of decorating an arch with items in vivid colors, the feeling would be different if the items were white or silver. Just about anything can be created, or recreated, in wedding theme colors.

Tulle is a very fine netting that is soft and easily draped. Once tulle is fashioned into a tube, just about anything can be tied inside, then ribbons can be used to create sealed-off sections. When finished, the tulle tube is woven throughout the arch to create a totally unique wedding expression. The arch could tell the story of where the bride and groom met or it could reflect a wedding couple’s dreams. Whatever the couple can imagine can be expressed.

The Uniting Wedding Arch

The marriage of two people is also the wedding of two families, but sometimes there is a sense of sadness that either the bride or the groom is being lost to another family. One small but significant way for the bride and groom to share wedding day love with everyone in their new families is to include them in the ceremony.

This is easily accomplished by creating small white ornaments with silver script lettering that bear the names of members of both families. Whether there are ten or two hundred family members to be recognized, adjusting the size of the ornament means that everyone can be included. The ornaments can be created in any shape—round, diamond, wedding bell, heart, dove, or any other perfect style that suits the bride and groom. In the alternative, charms can be used.

Hanging the charms or ornaments amidst the greenery, flowers, lace, tulle, or any chosen arch background, will symbolically bring all family members to the altar. And unlike guest seating that is traditionally separated into a bride’s side and a groom’s side, the ornaments on the arch will be co-mingled, just as the families will be from that day forward.

The Living Bridal Arch

Wedding arches don’t have to be made of wood or metal. They can be natural and organic. Bamboo, palms, trees, vines and potted plants can all be fashioned into stunning bridal arches. And for personalization, flowers matching those the bride chose for her bridal bouquet can be interwoven into the design and charms and ornaments can still be utilized.

Garden, backyard, beach and indoor eco-friendly weddings can be enhanced with a living arch, and when the wedding is over, the arch can become a part of the wedding couple’s home or backyard.

The Balloon Wedding Arch

Balloons at weddings? Some would shudder at the thought, but today’s balloon sculptors can create stunning balloon arches that include lights, fabrics, crystals and more. A uniquely designed balloon arch can be as impressive as one crafted of wood by an artisan’s hand.

Balloon arches easily lend themselves to personalization, for just about anything can be intertwined between the balloons.

The Loveliness of the Customized Wedding Arch

Whatever style of wedding arch is selected, it can be uniquely accented to reflect anything a wedding couple wishes to express. Wedding arches are beautiful in their own right, but when they have been customized for one bride and one groom alone, they are a wedding day treasure to be cherished and remembered.

The copyright of the article Unique Wedding Ideas - Personalized Wedding Arch in Wedding Planning is owned by Tricia Spencer. Permission to republish Unique Wedding Ideas - Personalized Wedding Arch in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.