How to put on a 1920s Gatsby-style Wedding

It’s a great dream when you start planning a wedding. You may have a vision in your head about how you would like your wedding ceremony and reception to look and this may include a fabulous theme or style.

Websites, blogs, Instagram and magazines have loads of fantastic ideas and images that have been styled beautifully and look atmospheric and romantic. You research as much as you can, and start to formulate a concept and a mood for your wedding. It’s a picture in your mind.

The trick is to then turn that concept into reality. After making a few enquiries with various suppliers, you may find that what looked fabulous in a styled photo, is either unrealistic or so expensive that you cannot afford it. Most of us are not in a position to just go ahead at any cost. So we either abandon our theme or water it down, so that it fits our budget.

Some brides love the idea of a fabulous theme and prefer a professional to put the theme together, leaving the bride to focus on other aspects and details of the wedding. This is also possible and can be done stress free and inexpensively if you follow some of these tips.

How to put on an inexpensive themed wedding

1. Start with a venue that suits your theme
This may seem obvious, but what you want to try and avoid, is creating a style completely from scratch. A 1920s Gatsby-styled theme suits The Gables venue perfectly, so you already have what I like to call the bones of the event…as opposed to trying to create an old world theme in a modern setting such as a warehouse or contemporary restaurant.

2. Work with the space you have
Once you have decided on your venue, your site should govern your planning. For example one of The Gables rooms, ‘The Peacock Room’, was the perfect choice for the ’Speakeasy’ at my wedding.

The position of the room and the décor made it an obvious choice for pre-dinner drinks. We were able to utilise the furniture and equipment already on site, to really set the tone of the event.

In my next post, I will outline the details of how create a “Speakeasy” at the Gables, on a tight budget.