Looking for the best backyard wedding ideas that’ll transform your home into the perfect wedding venue? Luckily, we’ve got you covered! Backyard weddings have certainly increased in popularity over the past two years. These ceremonies are truly an intimate way to celebrate your big day in a family-oriented manner.
To truly make your backyard wedding memorable, you’ll need to consider a few aspects that can help transform your standard yard into a lovely wedding fantasy. How you set up your backyard venue will have a big impact on the feel of your big day. Let’s go over the top ideas for creating a magical backyard wedding venue.
Top 8 Backyard Wedding Ideas
1. Create A Seating Area
While in addition to your backyard pews or ceremony seats and the chairs you’ll have set up for dinner time at the reception, you may also want to consider a dedicated lounge area. Having a fun lounge area at your reception has recently become one of the top wedding trends. Not only are they super stylish to transform an outdoor area to appear like a living room, but they also are quite practical.
You want your guests to get up and mingle about in different areas throughout the day. If you only include the dinner tables and chairs at your backyard wedding reception, the chances are high that your guests will feel obligated to remain in the same seat throughout the night.
Liven up your backyard area by including a lounge seating area for guests to roam about, sit, relax, chat, and be merry. You and your guests will love it!
2. Light Up The Yard With String Lights
Another great addition to your backyard wedding would be string lights. While your backyard can be an intimate, memorable venue to host your wedding, at the same time you want to transform this space in a way that makes it feel special.
Create a scene straight out of a fairytale by hanging string lights throughout your yard. This is the perfect solution for keeping the party going throughout the night as the string lights will brighten up the yard and create an all-around magical atmosphere.
Choose to hang your string lights above the tables, inside the tent, or directly above the dance floor. With this simple lighting addition your backyard will feel like a magical outdoor venue underneath a picture-perfect starry night sky.
3. Use Hanging Drapes Or A Tent
If you’re looking to rearrange your backyard or clearly separate your ceremony and reception, opt for hanging drapes or renting a big tent. Underneath the tent would be the perfect location to host dinner and dessert. It’ll help separate the day into sections for when guests should congregate inside the tent to eat and when they should roam about the rest of the yard to chat, play games, and take photos.
Another backyard wedding idea would be to include the dance floor under a large tent so the sound of the DJ doesn’t get muffled or become inaudible in outdoor conditions. This could also help reduce the noise pollution from your home a bit should you keep the party going well into the night and not want to upset any neighbors.
Aside from what you should organize under your tent, let’s not forget the major benefits of having a tent to begin with. When you’re planning an outdoor wedding of any kind, it’s important to keep in mind the uncontrollable forces of Mother Nature. Should your wedding day experience some unfortunate weather conditions, at least you’ll have a backup plan to keep the party going without having to squish all your guests inside the house. Plus, when it comes to serving food, a tent can help minimize excessive amounts of bugs swarming the delicious grub.
4. Create A Memorable Entrance
Your wedding is your big day. It’s time to go big or go home, and since you’re already home, might as well go big, too. With an outdoor, backyard wedding, it can be difficult to form the boundaries of the venue. If you’re looking to make your guests feel as if they’re entering a special location that isn’t just any old backyard, try creating a memorable entrance.
Perhaps your grand entrance includes curtains pulled back with foliage to enter your wedding tent. Or maybe you set up a unique wedding sign display to impress all who enter your backyard. Other ideas may include balloon arches, or a gate decked out in flowers. Whatever ideas you may have, the goal is making it feel as if your guests are stepping into an exclusive wedding venue.
As you go to hang and display wedding signs throughout your backyard venue, don’t forget to include your wedding hashtag for Instagram on them! This way your guests are aware early on of your fun wedding hashtag and will know to use it when they post. Advertising your wedding hashtag to your guests is the best way to ensure that all your photos will be stored online in one central location and be easy for you to view later.
5. Food Truck
Looking for some unique ways to serve your food at your backyard celebration? We’d definitely recommend giving some wedding food trucks a try! Whether you reserve a food truck to replace a traditional meal or you simply order a truck to appear as a snack or dessert option, they can be an exciting addition to your big day.
Not only will the food truck food be delicious and specialized, but your guests are also bound to love this unique wedding food experience. Let your guests pick the food they love and eat to their heart’s content. Your backyard wedding will be the talk of the town with a fun food truck appearance.
6. Pampas Grass For Decor
For a trendy look to transform your backyard into the ultimate wedding location, invest in some pampas grass. This dried grass look is incredibly stylish and has many great uses.
Pair some pampas grass with your flower arrangements to help accent your floral designs. Or use the grass on its own in tall pots and vases to place along your aisle. You can also use pampas grass to decorate your wedding arch for a stylish photo opportunity. Even use pampas grass in a creative way for your table centerpieces. This simple decor item will truly help add to your backyard wedding’s ambiance.
7. Photo Display
This backyard wedding idea is a great way to pay homage to the ideals of home and family on your big day. With this more intimate location to celebrate your marriage, it’s incredibly fitting to include a photo display that celebrates your families, your relationship, and shows off both you and your partner when you were young.
During your outdoor wedding, guests will love strolling to your fun photo display and browsing through your adorable pictures and memories. Whether you create a photo collage, a printed sign, hang up old photos, or include photo albums on various tables, this can be a fun additional space to make your backyard wedding even more special and memorable.
8. Backyard Games
Entertain your guests throughout the day with a series of backyard games. You can have your backyard wedding games be as carefree or as structured as you see fit. For example, you can leave giant Jenga, cornhole, Connect 4, frisbee, and other lawn games out and about for your guests to play at their leisure. Another option is creating more structured lawn game tournaments or wedding themed Bingo or trivia games that’ll take place at designated times.
No matter which games you choose to have or when you choose to play them, backyard games are a must-have backyard wedding idea. They’ll keep your guests entertained and have them making memories throughout the day.
Plus, you can personalize these games to fit your wedding theme. Choose to engrave you and your partner’s initials and wedding date into your wooden Jenga pieces. Or spell out your wedding hashtag on your cornhole boards. Now disperse your games throughout the yard and watch the fun themed chaos ensue.
Book Your Backyard Today!
With these backyard wedding ideas, you can make a fantastic wedding venue out of any location. Backyard weddings are perfect for the couples looking for an intimate atmosphere to celebrate with their nearest and dearest.
If you’re looking to transform a standard yard into a magical venue, don’t forget our tips above. Decorate your yard with a seating lounge and string lights for an enchanting appearance. Then use a tent and create a pivotal entrance point to make a lasting impression. Invest in pampas grass for decor and leave pictures of you and your partner around the yard for your guests to admire. And lastly, entertain your guests in your backyard with delicious food truck food and thrilling yard games.
Hosting your big day in your own backyard is bound to be a memorable experience. Whether it’s the house you grew up in or the place you just moved to, there truly is no place like home.
Kathy
Kathy is a freelance writer who specializes in writing about all aspects of a wedding—from the planning to the event itself. She graduated from the University of Technology in Sydney (yes, Australia!), with a degree in media and communication. She also became an American citizen and loves her new home country. Kathy has somewhat of a boho spirit and enjoys some great rock-n-roll music. She is married and enjoys working from home with her husband, who’s also a writer. They both try to get out as often as possible by taking long walks, visiting wineries on the weekend, and more. While they don’t yet have kids, Kathy and her husband have plans to expand their family in the next year or two!
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