cooking on the grill - going beyond the burger

Outdoor weddings are beautiful, but what happens if it rains? What if you want an outdoor forest wedding, but you're too worried about the weather destroying the whole thing? If you have the desire and determination, you can have a forest wedding inside. Turn your reception hall into a forest using these ideas:

Trees

You can purchase fake trees of different sizes in stores and online. Place them in corners and along the walls of the reception. Essentially, you are going to hide the walls using trees. If you need larger trees to really wow your guests, go ahead and make trees using paper mache and paint. Take the time to make realistic bark to make those trees really stand out.

Forest paths

Make it easy for your guests to walk around the hall and get to the tables, food, bar, and dance floor without problem by making forest paths. Use a thin brown fabric that looks like dirt. Most forest paths are just foot worn paths that have killed the grass and plants and left only dirt. Make the paths meander about the room. Paths rarely just look straight. Don't worry about making the material look rounded on the edges. That's just too much work. Take regular rectangular cut fabric and roll it out around the room as paths.

Grass Carpet

Fill the inside of the hall with grass carpet. Artificial grass carpet comes in rolls or tile shapes. It's more cost effective to buy rolls if you have a large open area, but tiles are easier to cut to size to fit in small areas. Fill in all the areas of the floor that are still visible, tucking it around the forest paths. The grass will cover up the sharp edges of the fabric and make the paths look more realistic. Make sure to surround the bottoms of the trees with the carpet so that it looks like the trees are growing out of the "ground."

Plants and Branches

Use real forest plants and branches as your centerpieces on the tables. This will not only keep the forest theme going but also provide some of that real forest scent. Another way to add plants is to tuck fake plants and grasses between the grass and the roots of the trees just like plants that grow near the trees in the forest.

Your guests will walk into the reception hall and think they were magically transported to the forest.

For more help with your reception, contact a center like Halls of St. George.