Wedding Canopy

The Creation of a Wedding Canopy!

My First step was to create the surface design.  The bride and groom met with me and explained that they wanted a very nature oriented theme with favorite colours of greens, blues and purples. I dyed the cotton and then added layers of fabric paint.  this area represented the river that ran through the centre of the design

Eventually I was satisfied with the three main swaths of colour. Blue to represent the sky, deep green with white swirls for the river, and a brighter green in the bottom for the foreground, to represent the land.

I created prints from my drawings and these became thermofax screens.  The bride's favorite flower is the Iris, and her favorite colour is purple so the land in the foreground was covered in printed purple Irises.

A view of the top piece laid out on the dining room table

some views of the printed iris flowers.  The grasses were painted on with a brush.

An image of the deer after quilting as seen from below as it is hung outside.  The shadow was painted into the river.All the quilting was free motion work with various threads.

The groom's middle name is Tzvi which means deer in Hebrew so he requested a deer on the canvas.  This was hand painted on with the fibre paints and dyes.  Of course I felt there needed to be at least 2 deer since we are celebrating the union of a young couple after all!  They are walking towards each other on the edge of the river.

The bride and groom chose the phrase, the font and its size.  I created a thermofax screen for each of these words which are placed amongst the irises in the foreground

Much to my surprise, after the quilt was constructed, I found out from the family, that they wanted the wedding canopy to stand on its own.  I had assumed that they would choose four people to hold the poles but you know what they say about a person who assumes.....
So...it was back to the drawing board, brainstorming, gathering suggestions from near and far, bringing in consultations from florists, and friendly engineers.  The results of all these consultations was that I was totally overwhelmed and confused.
Finally, I decided on buying 4 planting urns, 18 inches high,  used construction bricks teepee style inside the urns to keep the poles in the center of the pots and upright, while we poured cement into the pots about half way up.  The poles were over an inch in diameter from the hardware store.  I had spray painted them white and screwed an eye hook into the top.   This is the test on my driveway to make sure the poles wouldn't snap from the pressure of the quilt on the top.

Installation day....otherwise known as THE WEDDING DAY!  We arrived very early, stepladder in hand, I wanted plenty of time to get it right. 

The bride and groom wanted the canopy to be in the center of the sanctuary rather than on the front on the elevated platform.  They wanted to be close to family and friends.  This area was much smaller than the front but we felt confident that it would be enough room.

The first step was to erect the quilt.

But then I felt that without people holding the poles they looked a bit plain so I bought 75 feet of silk organza to drape around the poles and around the perimeter of the canopy

Feeling somewhat relieved that it all came together.

Detail of the finish of the organza in the pots, and I bought Irises to tie in with the prints on the quilt.  Too, the irises are the bride's favorite and I thought that they finished off the pots in a pretty way.

View from the front of the sanctuary.

View from the aisle

Views from the nosebleed sections

Finally !  The Ceremony!  Groom and his mother see the Canopy for the first time and give me the eye.

A beaming mother.

The bride sees the canopy for the first time.

She seems quite taken with it.

Alls well that ends well.  It was a beautiful ceremony and a great party! May they have many many years of health and joy!