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.


Here's another photo from a past wedding at St. Elizabeth in Rowland Heights. This was a golden anniversary wedding, thus the gold draping on the pews. I attached these with rubber bands, and made little poufs with the fabric and fluffed them up, which looks pretty and handily disguises the rubber bands.

These are just a few of the pew decorations that's available out there. Believe me, I've done so many types of pew decorations, but if a full aisle garland is not what you're looking for, Flickr is a great place for ideas.


One Flickr user in particular had most the best pew decoration ideas, from what I could see -- Wedding or Party Decorations. I'm not entirely sure if this account belongs to an actual florist, but if it does, I'd be happy to later on link to their website, if they have one.

Photo by Flickr's Wedding or Party Decorations

Tulle and flowers is more along the lines of what I do when it comes to decorating a church. There isn't a lot of detail in this photo, but there are a bunch of roses where the tulle is attached to each pew. If you weren't sure, when there is draping along the aisles, its usually every other pew or every other two pews, after skipping the first two (which will usually be reserved for family and have the most traffic, like, for witnesses who need to get up and sit back down). The tulle and flowers don't appear to be attached by tape; it could be attached to that gummy flower adhesive, but that stuff leaves a residue, so I don't really recommend using that stuff. Another way to get this effect would be to use white rubber bands. Also, check out the petals in the loops -- not bad!

Photo by Flickr's Wedding or Party Decorations

These are really nice -- big, purple and blue hydrangea blossoms in a metal flower vase. The vase is probably just aluminum, and the whole thing seems to be hanging by ribbon from a clip.

Photo by Flickr's Wedding or Party Decorations

This arrangement is even more simple -- red paper cones hung with ribbon with what look like pink and orange roses and greens. The nice thing about this arrangement and the last is that they're easily hung, easily removed and make a lot of impact because of the strong colors.