DIY Wedding Backdrop with Dropcloths for Budget Friendly Style

Its taken me a while to get these posts written, mostly because I didn’t take progress pictures when we were setting up for my sisters wedding.  But, today I want to show you how we made an easy DIY wedding backdrop with drop cloths.  It was the perfect addition to her outdoor woodland wedding.

When my sister told me she wanted to have her wedding up near my house on our property just outside Bryce Canyon, I was so excited.  I knew there was a ton of great things we could do.  Having the gorgeous blank canvas of a forest was the kicker. It would be great no matter what because nature has its own style, and it’s amazing.

My sisters main goal was to create something stylish, classy, and on budget…which was a tall order.  Its no secret though, that this is what motivates us.  Upcycling, repurposing and using a lot of elbow grease is what we are made of.

My sister wanted a statement.  We wanted to create a backdrop that really stood out against the natural elements of the forest trees.

We also needed something that was not going to cost her a lot of money.  Plus, since it was only getting used for the wedding, why not use something you could possibly use at a later date for a different project.

 

How me made a DIY wedding backdrop with canvas dropcloths:

Instantly we both knew what to use.  Drop cloths.  

My sisters challenge was to find some long enough for what she wanted, but they make drop cloths in many lengths, so she was able to find what she was looking for.

They key to making this all work out was to find a set of trees that we could use to hang the drop cloths from.  The wedding backdrop was an important feature and we wanted it to stand out.  We found a spot in the area where there were two large trees almost the perfect distance apart, which was what we needed to hang them. 

The first thing my sister did was sew a channel on the tops of the drop cloths so that we could feed the rope through the fabric so that it could hang securely.

Once the rope was fed through the dropcloth, we needed to hang it all.  We had to use ladders and some strong men to tie the rope to both trees securely.  We tied it as taught as we could get.  

Once they were hung, we were able to adjust them and tie them back to the trees at the bottom to make them have that swag effect.  The last thing we did was to hang a Manzanita bush garland to the top of the dropcloth wedding backdrop.

My husband and I went out and cut a ton of this bush off our property.  This is a great bush to use.  Whats great about it is that it has really beautiful leaves, which are really thick and firm,  They do not wilt after they have been cut.  So, we were able to cut these down prior to the wedding and didn’t have to keep them in water.  We actually hung our DIY wedding backdrop the day before the wedding and it stayed perfectly until the wedding.  

This DIY wedding backdrop using drop cloth was the perfect focal point for this wedding. It was the perfect “backdrop” to my sisters wedding. 

Did I mention that my husband was the officiant?  My sister asked him to do it, and it was pretty cool.

Another upcycle that we did for her wedding is the benches.  We sanded huge discarded beams and placed them on top of tree stump. This was THE BIGGEST project we did for this wedding. 

I wanted to share this project in hopes that it would inspire others when they are planning their wedding.  This is an easy project.

The great thing about this DIY wedding backdrop is that after the wedding was over, my sister was able to repurpose the drop cloth for other projects.

The other great thing about using the drop cloths is that they were heavy enough that they stayed put.  They didn’t blow around in the wind.  They were sturdy, yet elegant.