You’ve always imagined getting married on your family’s property where you grew up running around, or you love the idea of seeing and hearing the inter-coastal while you party the night away…so you think, we’ll maybe save some money on the venue and bring in a tent!

Tented weddings and events involve a lot more than you may realize. We run into situations often where couples think that a tented wedding will be a more cost-effective option than a traditional standing venue, but the truth is that tents have a lot of components (and are really best for people who *really* want the look of an outdoor party).

While tented weddings can actually end up being more costly and involve extra steps in planning, they are well worth the effort. Tented weddings are a chance to completely create the space you want from the ground up, and keep you outside in the fresh air, able to see the sky and, especially in our coastal area, the ocean. 

So if you’re sold on the idea of using a sentimental piece of land or having your wedding under a giant live oak tree, there are several benefits and several unique planning steps to think about. 

Location 

You can pop up a tent for an event virtually anywhere, allowing you to host your wedding in sentimental spaces like your childhood home or your own backyard, but there are a few limitations when building a tent on a new spot, whether that is on a private residence or not. 

Some of those limitations include having an underground clear of electricity and plumbing in order to stake the tent down without causing damage. Another is having enough consecutive, open space to allow for the tent to be opened up. We have run into this issue before with big, beautiful trees, which means sometimes the available space requires two smaller tents instead of one large one.

The BRE team and your tent rental vendor will walk through and examine wherever you’d like to potentially put up a tent to make sure that it can be done safely and reasonably.

Because tents take so much pre-planning and vendor management, we only offer services for tented weddings for partial or full wedding planning clients. 

Design

Since you are literally building a space from the ground up, you are able to control every aspect of the design. 

You can choose the color and style of the dancefloor, the lighting, the linens, the tables, the draping, stage fronts and backgrounds, florals, floor plan, layout, location, and more. 

Having to choose and bring in so many design elements typically makes tented weddings more costly than your traditional venue, but it allows you to fully cultivate an experience for your guests that reflects exactly what you envision.  

But with great design, comes even greater logistics! Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed by all the planning needs for a tented wedding. That’s what we are here for, and here’s a little peak into what we do. 

Logistics

One way to think about a tented wedding is that we are popping up a fully functional restaurant where there wasn’t one before.

Here are some of the things every tent needs: 

A Rain Plan 

One of the biggest benefits of a tented wedding is also its weakness. With it being outside, the event is susceptible to changes in the weather, and it is important to have a rain plan in place. 

If you have any outdoor portion of your wedding day, BRE makes sure to have back-up tents and tent sidewalls on hold for the day-of so you’ll never be in a situation where you have a less desirable tent situation or even worse, no alternative option at all.

Rain happens, so having a plan gives peace of mind that whether it’s rain or shine, your wedding will run smoothly. 

(Since tents are outside, always consider the season of your event. Typically, March is windy, April and May are wet, June and July are hot, September and October are in the middle of hurricane season, and November is chilly.)

Lighting (especially during Daylight Savings) 

Always make sure to check the time of year and consider Daylight Savings, when the sun sets much earlier. Summer weddings have to deal with this less with a much later sunset, either way, at some point, it will be dark outside. 

While we love this for a dance floor vibe, people will still need to be able to see to get around. This means you have to arrange to bring in, hang, and wire lighting throughout the tent.

Rentals 

Like with every event, you have tables, linens, and of course the dance floor! With a tented wedding, you will have to select rental vendors for all of this (where with a traditional venue they are often included).

The special challenge when planning a tented wedding is making sure you’re getting the right size tent to fit all that you want underneath it. 

(Some questions to ask yourself: Do you want to provide an individual seat for everyone? Will everyone be under the tent? Do you want the bar, food, etc. under the tent? Will cocktail hour also be under the tent?) 

Depending on how much you want the tent to cover changes the size of the tent needed (and also the size of the area in which the tent is being built). 

Auxiliary Tents 

In some vendors’ contracts (most typically caterers and bands), they need separate covered areas away from guests to be able to provide their services. This will have to be provided by you and also considered when surveying a potential area. 

These tents are smaller and less aesthetic than your main tent; they’re only for coverage. Keep in mind though with an open air tent, they will still be seen! 

Restrooms 

Depending on where the tent is located, restrooms may or may not be a concern. 

Sometimes, you can be fortunately located beside commercial bathrooms that are able to handle your guest capacity, but if it’s solely a private residence wedding, you will have to rent bathroom facilities for your guests. 

A private home simply cannot handle a 100+ person event. This puts a strain on the plumbing system that it was not designed for and could potentially cause problems for the homeowners down the line. 

But don’t worry, there are some really nice, upscaled restroom rentals available!

Power 

For every event, there also needs to be power. This runs the lights, the stage, the fans (if it’s a hot summer night), and more. 

The band and/or the DJ also have certain wattage requirements to run their equipment and keep the night going, so the BRE team figures out exactly how many generators you need and where they need to go, so the party doesn’t get interrupted by tripped breakers. 

Set-Up 

Last but most important, the set-up of a tent is an involved process that can take up to a week, depending on the tent and rental requirements. With all of the moving parts and vendors, it’s a full time job making sure that everyone and everything is where it needs to be, when it needs to be, so they aren’t in each others’ ways.  

How the tent set-up timeline typically goes is the tent is staked, then lighting is put up and wired, then rentals (like tables, chairs, and dance floor) are brought in, followed by specialty rentals (lounge sets, etc.), ending with an inspection by the fire marshall the day before, and then your wedding day! 

The fire marshall inspection must happen for every tent that is erected so it’s necessary to get set-up done early to have available time for the inspection because without it, we can’t run your event. 

Tents take a lot of planning, but when their design comes together, they feel like an entirely new world built for you and your guests. 

BRE is here to let you have the tented wedding over your dreams without all of the stress. Let us know if that’s something you’re interested in and what your vision is – we are ready to get the party started!