How to Keep DIY Wedding Arches From Falling
Wedding arches are a popular decorative piece. However, unless you’re willing to spend a lot of money for a sturdy arch, you’re left with something that easily falls over.
Thankfully that are some fairly inexpensive options for stabilizing a wedding arch, both for indoor and outdoor use.
For the purposes of this article, we’ll use this best selling wedding arch from Amazon as our example of how we could anchor it down and make it more sturdy.
As you can see, there are no cross supports for the legs, making it extremely easy to tip over. Some people have found success with it and other people didn’t like it at all for those reasons.
This particular wedding arch is made so that you can push the legs down into the ground if you are placing it outside. However, this can be risky as many have noted that the metal is very flimsy and bends easy. Also, depending on the type of ground you’re on, this might not be very easy to do.
One factor that affects how stable your wedding arch will be is how much decor you plan to put on it. Obviously, the more decor you have, the more top heavy the arch will be and the easier it will be to knock over.
Another factor that could mean disaster for your beautiful wedding arch is weather. If you’re having a nice outdoor wedding or a fun beach wedding, you never know what the wind will be like and how that will affect your arch.
It would be best to plan for some sort of base that you can use whether you are planning an outdoor wedding or an indoor wedding… even if you can just stake your arch into the ground at an outdoor wedding. This way, if the weather is bad and you have to move the ceremony inside, you’ll still have the proper supports to set your wedding arch up indoors.
Here are a few creative, and very beautiful ways you can anchor and stabilize your wedding arch to keep it from falling over.
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Wedding Arch Base Options
There are various ways to brace a wedding arch. Some are better and easier to decorate than others. It all depends on how much money you want to spend making it look how you would like.
Cement Base
A cement base is probably the sturdiest ways to makes sure your wedding arch doesn’t go anywhere. However, the downfall to a cement base is that it can be extremely heavy to move around.
You could do something very similar to this idea from A Practical Wedding by filling a bucket, flower pot, or wooden box with cement and using a piece of PVC in the center to stick your arch legs in to hold them. Then cover the cement with moss, rock, flowers, etc.
This way you know that whether the wind is strong or someone bumps into the arch, it’s not going to fall over. Also, this is a great option for indoor or outdoor weddings!
Flower Pot Base
If you want a more formal look with a lot more decorative options that you can incorporate into your wedding theme, a flower pot might be just what you need.
This beautiful flower wedding arch from ifimade.com is anchored by two simple terracotta pots. You could fill the pots with concrete, soil, stones or even sand to help brace your arch.
The Amazon wedding arch I’m using for this post has two rods on either side. Therefore, you might want to find a square or rectangle flower pot that will accommodate both rods in one pot. Just make sure that you use something more sturdy like concrete if the pots aren’t very tall.
Log Base
I absolutely love this idea for a more rustic look. With a large hole-saw, you could drill some holes down the center of some heavy logs. Then just stick the legs of your wedding arch in the drilled out holes. The logs will provide ample stability, just make sure they are heavy enough and have flat bottoms so they don’t tilt.
For example, this Jewish Chuppah from Martha Stewart Weddings has beautiful log bases that are covered around the hole with moss to make an even more rustic look!
Umbrella Base
Another great idea is to purchase a few umbrella bases to stick the legs of your wedding arch in to. These can be purchased in various styles.
I really like this umbrella stand from Amazon (affiliate link) because it’s pretty inexpensive and you can just fill it with sand or water to weigh it down. plus, you can get it in different colors that will be easy to hide once you have all your decor on the arch.
As you can see on this example from Wedding Chicks, the umbrella stands offer very stable base for the wedding arch!
How to Stabilize a Wedding Arch in a Pinch
If it the day before your wedding, your setting everything, and suddenly you realize the wedding arch you bought is super flimsy, don’t panic!
There are some super quick things you can do to keep your wedding arch from falling over. All you need is a few materials and it’ll be resolved in no time. Don’t stress yourself out two much.
The first option is to get yourself a few 2′ x 4′ boards and cut them at about 24″ or 36″ depending on how top heavy your arch will be and how many posts you have. If you go to Lowe’s or another place like that, they’ll cut the boards for you. Cut two boards for each side of the arch and get some long screws or bolts. You’re going to put the boards on either side of the posts. So you’ll have one 2′ x4′ board, then the posts of the arch, and then the other 2′ x 4′ board… like a sandwich. Line them up on the ends so they’re even. Then drive the screws or bolts through until it’s snug up against the posts on either side. repeat on the other side of your arch and you’ll be good to go! With some fabric,
Another option is to get a few sandbags and brace them along the sides of the arch. Remember, you can always cover them up with fabric or flowers or anything creative.
Please share you ideas for stabilizing a wedding arch in the comments!
