Church Decorating

I am essentially getting married on a large stage.  Stages are cool, but I think it would be nice to dress it up a bit for a wedding.  Even though I am not very familiar with the stage dimensions and the items they have available to decorate, I thought I would try to come up with a rough sketch of my "dream" decorating for the stage. 

I know a few of the things the church has on hand.  For example, they have long white strips of cloth they drape from the ceiling to the floor.  I would definitely want these cloths up, even if we have other decorations in front of them.  In the picture, these white cloths would be behind all of the decorations I drew.

I know the church has a number of while pillars, but I am not sure how many.  I would assume they have at least 4, but I drew 6 large pillars in my picture.  I also drew some small pillars.  I know the church also has some small pillars, but again, no idea how many.  Small pillars could easily be substituted by small round stools covered in white cloth/tulle.

I know the church has the big black and white dividers that you see in the center of my picture.  Becca used these in her wedding.  I also stole the candelabra inspiration from her.  :)

This is kind of where the design gets tricky.  I think it could look really cool to have tulle or white cloth draped over the pillars.  I don't know if it would work out as perfectly as I made it look in my sketch, and it make take some playing around with.  Plus, there are multiple ways to drape the tulle around the pillars. 

I like the idea of putting white flowers on top of at least some of the pillars, and maybe this would just be appropriate for the short pillars.  In my picture, I drew flowers on top of all of the pillars.  I know the church has an abundance of fake flowers.

Finally, I think it would be cool to line the stage with candles (if it isn't too much of a fire hazard!).  For Becca's wedding, we used candles at the base of the stairs, which you can see in the picture below.  Also, I definitely want to incorporate an aisle runner going down the sanctuary and up the stairs. 

As far as the piano goes, I think I want it pushed off to one side as far as possible.  In this picture, again from Becca's wedding, you can see the piano on the stage, off to one side.  I like the lighted trees the church has, and I think they would be great for filling in "gaps" on the stage, such as behind the piano. 

When it comes to the placement of a unity candle, or sand, or whatever we end up doing, I think I want to use just a small table, placed somewhere on the stage.  This time, I am stealing inspiration from Lisa's wedding.  :) 

So there you have it!  Now I have stayed up way too late thinking about wedding things.  Not a surprise!  :)