Hi, I'm hoping you all can help me out with plans for what to do with the altar. This has seriously been stressing me out, which is ridiculous for something so minor. So here's the deal, with pictures as I go. Sorry it's kind of long.
I don't really love the look of arches, I've been extremely picky when looking at examples. I hate the idea of dropping ~$400 on something I don't really like that much. I did find one option that I do like...
arch I like
...but no one I've talked to seems to have this style as a rental option. I found this one on Etsy that would be $270, with fabric, and my stepfather and/or FH can put it together easily. The problem is, we'll be at a hotel, so I'd have to coordinate getting it shipped there and having somewhere to store it if it won't fit through the hotel room doorways. I'd also likely have to give it away after since we couldn't bring it back, but it's cheaper than renting, so this is fine. Flowers to decorate it would be an additional $100 or so.
So recently, I've thought about using lanterns as the altar. My plan is to line the aisle with palm leaves, and put small lanterns along the aisle every other row or so. So I was thinking it would be something like this:
altar idea, no arch
This is basically the setup with the leaves, but there will be small lanterns on them. So I could get a few larger matching and complimentary lanterns to use as the altar, along with palm leaves and maybe a couple of other items. It looks beautiful in this picture, but my ceremony will be on a public beach, much farther from the ocean. Here is the setup for my ceremony:
my venue (apologies for the poor quality)
So anyway, I'm just hoping to get some opinions on if you think it will look too empty without an arch, or if the lanterns are enough. The other benefit is that I could then use the big lanterns as additional decor at the reception. Here's an image I altered in Photoshop that I think gives a better idea of what it would look like from further back on the beach:
lantern steup
So anyway, the TL;DR of this is -- is it worth the hassle and expense to have an arch or should I go with the lantern setup? Help!
