Wedding arbours – styling that’s inspired by innovation over tradition

Guest blog by Emma Scott, For Love and Living - boutique wedding planning, styling and hire service

For Love and Living has been creating design concepts for Love Story Ceremonies for the past year.

When Jo Hurley first approached us to create beautiful spaces for her to demonstrate her work as a celebrant, it was a no- brainer to create a series of stunning, modern wedding arbour installations. We designed these arbours to represent the intimate moment Jo shares as a celebrant with her real-life couples on their wedding day.

Jo is a celebrant inspired by the art of storytelling - a value we also share when coming up with creative ideas for our clients. We are seeing that it’s becoming increasingly common for couples to exchange the traditional arbour at the altar for more innovative ideas, which really reflect their own style, personality, and unique love story.

When working with Love Story Ceremonies, we know it’s all about innovation over tradition. We design spaces that reflect Jo’s personality, mirror the surroundings of the venue and also captivate Jo's target audience.

A couple of our absolute favourites were designed at The Wedding Harvest Fair.

The Lushington is a stunning 1920s art deco warehouse in the inner city of Brisbane. We used the venue as our inspiration for the arbour concept. We wanted the installation to look and feel like an extension of the space, incorporating the brick interior and concrete floors.

We created a very unique alter space, thoughtfully selecting raw materials that worked against the warm bricks of the interiors and dark, wooden, exposed beams. We decided to create a half circle, essentially made up of concrete breeze blocks, which were stacked on top of each other to create height. The look was softened and romanticised, using clusters of candles and petals loosely piled on the floor. It was magical when the lights were turned down and the candles took the spotlight.

Summergrove Estate is nestled in the lush Tweed Coast hinterland, with spectacular panoramic ocean and valley views. A venue space designed with relaxation, romance and lifestyle in mind, we used the picturesque views and fresh minimalistic barnyard-inspired interiors to inspire our next arbour design.

We joined forces with Amber from Mrs Gibbons Flowers to create a lush space, thoughtfully selecting a fresh, yet soft colour palette. The base was conceptualised using plinths to create the height framed with a white backdrop, the look was softened with silk cascading from the backdrop down to the floor.

The wow factor was certainly the blooms sitting pretty on the plinths. They also cascaded down the sides filled with Columbian roses, orchids and sprayed pastel palms. It felt like you were standing amongst a garden in full bloom, it was so beautiful.

If you’re looking for unique wedding arbour ideas, be sure to visit Jo at her next expo featuring our arbour designs, or get in touch to find out more.

Emma x

For Love and Living

Jo Hurley