I Need Ideas for Decorating a Drab Reception Hall...

I had to spruce up the walls at my wedding reception site! I bought some wedding tulle at Wal-mart (it comes on a spool) and if you or know anyone that has some white christmas lights that have the white cord too I took that and hung it against the wall and covered it with the tulle. You could also get some pretty silk spring flowers and put it under the tulle to add some color. I hope this is making sense to you... if not you can e-mail me at ____@____.com. I LOVE doing this stuff so if you need some more help please contact me!!! :)

Hi Sheli, I just have ONE word....LIGHTING,LIGHTING,LIGHTING!!!!! Use lots of Christmas lights. If you can find any pastel colors, use them, if not, go with white. I have entwined them with tulle, for added color, but not for a long period of time (safety first). I don't know what the look you want for your speaker's background, but I have used empty carpet rolls covered with lights and tulle as pillars with netting draped across the top. Lattice works well, but is a lot of work unless someone has it already prepared, it must be painted, stands must be made to hold it upright, and you still need to add greenery and lighting. I just look around the basement and use what I can find to decorate with, it's amazing what you can find if you look around!! If this is for a non=profit group, talk to a local photographer about borrowing a backdrop for the speakers table. Sometimes they will loan something appropriate. Good luck, hope it all goes well. D.

You can try a garden center (lowes, walmart) and buy some cheap trellis' and weave ribbon or flowers through them to go with your spring theme. Or there is a fabric store on metcalf & 119th street (near elephant bar restaurant) that has great prices on bolts of fabric (sometimes $1-3/ yd). They also have great specials on draperies - I bought x-tra long for $6 a panel a month or so ago. Maybe even try JC Penney Home Store which is over there also. They have a clearance bin that has great deals. Joannes also sells inexpensive fabric and if you find their 40% off coupon in the Sunday paper, you get an even better deal. Or if you know an 'artist' you can have them draw a mural on large (really large) paper and hang that... Try ebay also...

I would try fabric. You might get a company to donate some fabric and you can drape the walls. Our church has fabric that is centered at the top of the cross against a wall, then draped down to the floor, opening the fabric wide at the bottom. My 4 year old granddaughter asked why they had a dress up there!! I'm sure draping fabric even at the top of the wall would make it look good, probably a solid color would work best, but maybe something else that might catch your eye. Bunting might be another way to think about draping, like on the 4th of July or during election time. Hope all goes well, think about donations you might be surprised, maybe a green house would let you borrow big tropical plants or flowering plants for the night in return for advertising where the plants come from, since you're a non-profit their donation will be tax deductible!

I think you are on the right track when you said lattice, you can weave white lights through the lattice for something different, even putting in flowers on the lattice.
Tall potted plants or pot tall cascading branches with lights weaved in them, you could even hang lanterns from them.

Tulle would also work, if you can even cover the main focus area with tulle, it would look better. Can you attach it the wall? I know some places will let you use the removable 3-M tape. And drape it down the wall.

You could always embrace the brown paneling and go with a spring barn like environment.

I am on the Christmas Committee at my work and I am usually in charge, with 1 other woman, of coming up with the site and decor. The past 2 years we have had a site where we didn't have to do much decorating, but the year before that, we were in a very poorly decorated site. It had the tile floor, wood panels, and a white ceiling that had smoke stains all over it, but it was the right price at the time. Anyway, we dimmed the lights to hide the ceiling a bit, or at least take away from that attention of the ceiling. We also found "curtains" from A-1 Rental and Party Supply that we used to drape the back of the stage (to hide the paneling and to spruce it up a bit) and behind the curtain we ran white lights. It looked amazing and we got compliments throughout the night of how great we made the hall look, and all we really did was dress up the stage area. The curtain was a big metal frame that has fabric material on the frame itself so it is self-supporting and if I remember correctly, it was fairly inexpensive and you could get it in a lot of different colors. We had the tables covered in white cloths and centerpieces, but nothing as extravagant as what you were describing as having so I think that the curtain idea would really make a bigger difference for your site. I have realized that most people will ignore the drab areas if you give them a nice area to focus their attention.

We rented a really old men's club for my wedding reception. Being a men's club it was drab with really ugly walls. My mom and cousin got 70 yards of white tool and white christmas lights and decorated the hall with that. If you will be using this hall more than one time then you can purchase lattice peices from home stores and spray paint them white and put some of the tool on them with lights also. If you can muster up some coupons for fabric stores then you can get the tool even cheaper. Most stores will take other sotres' coupons. The tool can be reused also. My mom donated our tool to our church and they use it to decorate the gym with for wedding receptions now. Hope this is somewhat helpful. Good luck and God Bless.

Do any in your group have false ficus trees? Those look nice grouped; in corners, ect. with mini lights on them.
By the way, everybody "tool" is spelled "tulle".

Hi S.
Every year Prince of Peace transforms their gymnasium into a beautiful event space for the Gala. A guy named David is responsible for the decor and he does a fabulous job. You can see his website here http://www.designers-touch-llc.com
You might consider contacting him and asking if for a nominal fee he would consider loaning you the fabric they drape the walls with. He would also be a great resource for other decorating ideas.

I immediatly thought that you need some bright art in the room! :o) If there is a school near, or somethign that would fit into your scenario, how about have the students make posterboard sized "art" for the room? You could even do a "silent auction" or soemthing like that and donate the funds to the school...? You wouldn;t want to decorate the room like a wedding reception, I wouldn;t think. I like the flowers and placemats and real china for sure. You can also decoarte the chairs with a slip cover and simple ribbon to add a splash of color, but don;t do too big of a ribbon or you will lean toward "wedding reception". Perhaps some spring colored ballons on each side of the speaker? I was trying to think inexpensive and colorful. Hope this helped!

Recently where I work they have a once a year event called "The round up". This was the year it was hosted at our site. Using that them one of our ladies was very creative and used the white table cloths with red bandana squares on top and placed a different barrowed hurricane lamp on each table. At the drink table she used a old water pump (small) and placed a tin bucket or pan under it for ice. The doorways were dressed with a colorful scarf valance and on all the walls was a varity of country items or western, old cowboy hats, jackets, metal stars with hooks to hold itesm, lasso's you get the picture. All items were barrowed which made it very inexpensive. Once it was all done it looks fabulous. She even had a little place where she decorated like a camp fire with everything a cowboy needed. Everyone loved it. We had a separate room right across that for lunch between the doors she created a overhead thing that looked just like a cover fromthe covered wagon. It was inexpensive, fun, and had everyone relaxed. Godd Luck