19 Budget-Friendly Garden Wedding Ideas

Whether you’re still looking for your garden wedding venue or you’ve already found the perfect location, we’ve put together a list of garden wedding ideas to help you achieve the day of your dreams. 

For starters, you need to take the season into consideration. It’s obvious to choose the date based on the weather since your wedding will be at least partially outdoors, but the season will also impact the decor of your wedding. Since it is a garden wedding, you’ll want to have a plethora of florals and foliage. Be sure to check with a florist to see what will be in season during your desired date to make sure everything from your bouquet to your decor is available and doesn’t break the bank due to seasonality. 

Check out these fantastic, cheap garden wedding ideas

1. Think outside the flower

Don’t neglect greenery. From lush greenery like eucalyptus garland to an archway crawling with ivy, creating a romantic and luxurious secret garden to celebrate your nuptials doesn’t have to be floral specific. Another trend to consider is dried florals. These can be in the form of dried palm fronds, roses, pampas grass and more. Not only are they unique, but they are much more cost effective than traditional florals.

2. Add pressed flowers to your decor

Pressed flowers can be incorporated into your wedding via invitation, escort display, name place cards, and more to add a delicate nod to the garden theme. Consider doing it yourself for an added budget-friendly benefit.

3. Create stunning floral installations

Elevate your garden wedding with floral installations in the form of altar archways, hanging flower arrangements over dinner tables, romantic backdrops, and more. One of our all-time favorites is faux clouds over dinner tables in the form of baby’s breath.

4. Build a living wall

Living walls, also known as green walls, are vertical architectural pieces laced with living plants grown using hydroponics. Choose to make your living wall the backdrop for your photobooth. Or have it live behind the dessert station to add a green element to your cake cutting. The options are endless.

5. Add flowers to your wedding cake

Speaking of the dessert station, add flowers to your wedding cake! You can add piped flowers made of frosting and fondant or choose to have more of a basic cake and add elaborate real flowers cascading down the side. 

6. Use draped fabric to create an ethereal look

Draped fabric is one way to instantly add elegance to your wedding decor. Some of our favorites are draping fabric over chairs, creating magnificent entry ways with draped fabric curtains, and panel draping overhead in your reception location to add that gorgeous ethereal feel. If you’re planning the wedding yourself, be sure to understand your various fabric choices to ensure the perfect vibe.

7. Add vegetables to your reception

Adding vegetables to your garden wedding may not be your first inclination, but we think you should highly consider it. Vegetables are not only a unique twist on the garden theme, but they can also add a pop of color to really take your design up a notch. Some of our favorite ways to incorporate veggies include a lush garden vegetable basket as a centerpiece, vegetable name place cards, and a full edible farm-to-table crudite station complete with a rustic feel.

8. Incorporate floral fabrics

From floral linens to table runners to even bridesmaids’ dresses, incorporating your garden theme into fabrics is a spectacular to add even more magic to your wedding in an unexpected way. For a secret nod to your theme, consider wearing shoes with a hint of floral.

9. Carry your garden theme into party favors

Party favors that are on theme don’t have to break the bank. Some of our favorites include packets of seeds for your guests to start their own garden at home and personalized succulents complete with the guests name painted onto the pot. 

Where to look for additional garden wedding ideas and inspiration

10. Pinterest

Because Pinterest is an image-based website, it is terrific for wedding inspiration that you can show to your planner to keep you both on the same page. Not only that, but Pinterest is also a haven for DIY of all kinds, including weddings. If you’re looking for helpful tips on how to make your DIY garden wedding spectacular, look not further than Pinterest.

11. Better Homes & Gardens

BH&G has a website devoted specifically for weddings, and it’s full of DIY floral ideas. Not only that, but their wedding blog has lots of other helpful wedding tips. On the traditional BH&G site, you may not find wedding specific articles, but you will find plenty of garden wedding ideas along with helpful tips on the seasonality of specific flowers and greenery. 

12. Country Living

If you’re looking for a more rustic, Americana style garden wedding, Country Living is perfect for you. They offer suggestions on venues, cakes, florals and more, all with warm and welcoming, down-home touch. 

13. The Budget Savvy Bride

If you’re planning your own garden nuptials or find yourself on a tight budget, this website will be your saving grace. The Budget Savvy Bride features real weddings that you can use as inspiration paired with money-saving tips to help you stay in budget without sacrificing style and quality.

14. Martha Stewart Weddings

Martha Stewart Weddings is a fabulous resource for planning your garden wedding because not only are the photos perfect for inspiration, but the website itself is easy to navigate and very search friendly. The best part of this site is looking through the incredible weddings of other couples and getting inspiration on how to take their ideas and make it your own.

Great garden wedding venues in the U.S.

15. The Rye Patch, Aiken, SC

Get married underneath the branches of a hundred year old oak tree at this Southerner’s dream venue. The estate sits on 10-acres of land complete with a garden, sun room, library and two kitchens. The great thing about this venue is that you can have the ceremony and reception indoors, outdoors, or both, so your weather backup plan is built into the venue. 

16. The Gardens at Heather Farm, Walnut Creek, CA

If you’re looking for a venue that also gives back to the community, The Gardens at Heather Farm is perfect. Just outside of San Francisco, The Gardens is a non-profit public garden, education center, and event venue sitting on six-acres of gardens with both indoor and outdoor spaces available. With various options for your ceremony and reception, this venue has it all for the garden wedding of your dreams.

17. Blue Heron Lake, Dorset, OH

From a rustic barn to a lake to a forest of pine trees, Blue Heron Lake has numerous options to help you create a romantic garden wedding. The property is maintained beautifully, but not overly groomed to allow you and your guests to really feel like you are a part of the beauty of nature. Consider this venue if you’re looking for a more dramatic and romantic location to say, “I do.”

The best ways to find garden wedding venues in your city 

18. Wedding Spot

Wedding Spot allows you to search by venue, location, or style and then refine your results based on your budget, guest count, and beverage preference. Pro tip: save a ton of money by choosing a venue that allows you to BYOB. Wedding Spot even shows you a pre-estimate of what the venue will cost so you can narrow down your options accordingly. Each venue listed comes complete with photos and a description of what it has to offer to help you select the perfect garden location. 

19. Google

When in doubt, use Google. Google is great if you don’t quite have your location figured out yet. Let’s say you want to get married in California, but you’re not sure about the city. Googling “wedding venues in California” will generate some fantastic places for you to start your search. Once you narrow your search further after you decide on the city and the style of wedding, we suggest jumping over to Wedding Spot to really pinpoint the garden wedding venue you’ve been dreaming of.