An aisle runner may feel like an unnecessary expense but it serves several purposes. Few items are as heavily photographed as your wedding aisle – those photos of the flower girls and ring bearers, the bridesmaids, the mother of the bride, the groom and best man anxiously await, photos of elderly loved ones being escorted up the aisle, and of course, everyone takes a photo of the bride as she emerges. A wedding aisle runner appears in all photos for both the procession and recession. 

Light reflects upward, which means the color of the floor will reflect onto a white wedding gown – casting a bit of a shadow. An aisle runner keeps the reflected light bright. This is especially the case if your ceremony space is a darker space (such as an older church or a room with dark wood paneling) or if you are having a candlelit ceremony. When you are visiting your ceremony venue, inspect the area of the aisle floor that will show up in your photos to assess if you need an aisle runner. Inspect the floor and rug in the facility you are having a wedding ceremony – does it look good enough on its’ own to be in the photos you will keep forever? Brides who don’t think of this are often disappointed to see a rug or dark flooring they never noticed repeated over and over in their wedding photos, creating a very dated and dark look. You may not be able to control many aspects of a church or other wedding ceremony site, but you can control the appearance of the aisle with an aisle runner. Even an at-home wedding will likely have areas you would want to find a way to make more “bridal” such as unattractive carpet that does not match, very informal, too dark or shabby.

Few decorations cover your facility with as much of your weddings’ thematic element as an aisle runner does – you literally have lots of square footage covered. If you are doing pew decorations, the floor can look comparatively “bare” or unfinished without an aisle runner to complete the look – sort of like wearing full makeup and forgetting your lipstick. An aisle runner can also be important in facilities that may not allow much decoration such as certain synagogues or churches, or if you have an outdoor wedding in an expansive area such as a park or beach or golf course, an aisle runner gives a sense of intimacy in a wide open space. It also protects your dress and shoes from grass stains or dirt. Your dress and shoes can also be ruined by sand – so consider a runner with a simple design for a beach wedding.

The decorative elements of a wedding runner is a way to denote the design theme of your wedding. Your guests will be spending time waiting for the ceremony to begin with little else to do or look at, an aisle runner helps guests see the theme of the wedding and to spot the details you have spent so much time planning – such as how often your monogram or decorative elements appears on other personalized items they might otherwise miss.

The design portion of your wedding runner makes a nice photo spot for you with guests or for a photo for thank you notes.

Some smaller towns have one reception hall or restaurant that is used for most events including corporate events, anniversaries, birthday parties, etc. If you are having your wedding ceremony in a space that is often associated with other functions or in the same facility as where you are having your reception, an aisle runner distinguishes your ceremony space from other events that guests may have also attended in the same space. Are you having your event at the same church or restaurant that someone else had their event – especially a recent one? An aisle runner is a way to have a different look in the same space to make your event more visually distinctive.

It makes sense to have a higher quality wedding aisle runner than those typically found in bridal warehouses or craft stores. The rest of your ceremony decorations are expensive – the flowers for example – and not everyone even notices them.  Your attire and everything else about your ceremony is costly. But a runner with a plastic look will stick out and look cheap despite all your other efforts to make a ceremony look nice. So if you decide on a wedding aisle runner, give yourself adequate time to find one you will like. Consider custom or couture wedding aisle runners.

Here is what we found in researching where to find a quality custom or signature wedding aisle runner:

For the Do it Yourself Bride, a wedding runner is not something you can paint yourself with a stencil on a bridal warehouse generic runner because inks and paints can run or bleed and get your dress and your guests clothing. It is also difficult to obtain a durable runner fabric that you can work with and won’t rip or tear. If you like to have “creative control” and have a logo or design in mind, consider Wedding Runways, they make custom wedding aisle runners that can incorporate your design or graphic with fonts and colors and text of your choice. The owner of Wedding Runways started the business after searching for a signature wedding aisle runner for her own wedding and she couldn’t find anything she liked. Our kind of girl! She started a specialty wedding aisle runner company that creates customized aisle runners that allow for a bride to incorporate personalized details on a runner. Have a custom wedding runner design idea or wedding theme and you can’t find anything to match? WeddingRunways can help.

Try the Wedding Runways Design-your-Own custom printed wedding aisle runner software to see what your own personalized aisle runner would look like here  or get ideas about how a signature custom printed wedding aisle runner looks here.

Wedding Runways is currently giving brides a complimentary personalized thank you poster with every custom printed wedding aisle runner.  These posters match the theme of the wedding and can be photographed holding it and it makes for a fun, personalized wedding thank you postcard.

Visit WeddingRunways.com and see their aisle runner design ideas, and for unique wedding ideas and updates on the latest wedding trends this season, visit the Wedding Runways Blog.

Wedding Runways is located in Branford, Connecticut

Check out HauteLook.com - it’s a membership based site that works by invitation. They have deep discounts on top designers and makeup brands - of note are two of their current sales, Stila Makeup and Danielle Stevens Jewelry. And to get you started with something nice, if you sign up through LuxiBrides via the link above, you’ll get a $10 credit in your account immediately! There are some beautiful necklaces that are reduced to $21 and gorgeous earrings from $18, so the $10 credit will make them incredibly reasonable.

It’s free to sign up - and for every friend you refer who makes a purchase, you will get a $10 credit. Refer a few friends and you can get a great piece of jewelry or a bridal accessory (or a gift for your guy) for free. They have a Dior sale coming up - so you may want to get your friends on board now.

Check out the latest sales - they change all the time. The prices don’t change during the course of the sale, and items tend to fly out fast, so if you see something you like, you may want to get it sooner rather than later.

Right now they also have two coupons available worth $10 each - Custserv10 and gift (you can only use one coupon at a time), so that would bring you bring you to $20 of free merchandise if you sign up through our link!

Save $10 on Bridal makeup, a massage, or gifts for your bridesmaids. SpaFinder gift certificates are a great way to save on spa and salon services for your wedding.  Look for your favorite spa or salon in the SpaFinder directory.

• Accepted at over 5,000 participating spas worldwide for spa treatments, salon services, manicures, vacation experiences, spa products, and more
• Can be bundled with additional unique items to make your gift extra special
• Redeemable at the SpaKist boutique for unique spa-at-home products - want to get some do it yourself at home spa products to save some money? SpaFinder is has several spa items on sale now.
• Buy a SpaFinder gift certificate for $50 or more, your purchase includes a two-year subscription to Town&Country Magazine

Save $10 on over $100 SpaFinder gift certificates

Are you having Tiffany Blue in your wedding colors? My Wedding Favors has a pretty wedding favor to match the Something Blue Gift Box Candle in Pearlized Box with Satin Printed Ribbon. Each candle is individually wrapped and enclosed in a showy 1.75″” x 1.75″” box tied with a blue satin ribbon reading “”Something Blue.”"

Enter coupon code SAVE5 to receive 5% off of your order.

These Topiary Place card Holders made me smile - measuring 4 1/8″ tall x 1 7/8″ wide, they won’t compete with your flowers, but definitely compliment any floral scheme. What I particularly like is the versatility of them - perfect for a garden wedding or a tent reception, but the structure of them (as well as the dark wood planter) still works with an indoor facility. They have a little clip to hold the placecard itself in place. It would be great for a reception menu as well.

I think they are also perfect for bridal showers - especially getting into Spring and Summer.

And yes, they are not real plants, so you won’t have to be constantly trimming all of them with little scissors all the time…

Find them at Eliza Fig.

Want to walk down the aisle to your favorite Clapton or Guns n Roses song, but still want a traditional ceremony? Most modern songs have gotten covered by string quartets in a way that your friends will recognize as your personal touch, and that your older relatives won’t detect as the music that came blaring from your room when you were a teenager.

One particularly good band for this purpose is the Vitamin String Quartet. The music they cover is broad - songs that are popular right now, vintage rock, and everything in between. Of all the song I could think of, all except one are represented in their catalog.

Well over 2000 of their songs are available at Amazon - while they are also available on albums (great if you want everything from Rolling Stones playing during cocktail hour), they are available for MP3 download from Amazon. Remember - Amazon offers DRM-free MP3s (aka legal and you can burn them to a CD or copy them to an iPod) with instant download so you can customize exactly what songs get played on your big day!

To get a taste of Vitamin String Quartet, here is Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight”:

Looking for a vintage style wedding dress? A recreation of your mother’s or grandmother’s dress? Or just something a bit different? Check out The Vintage Wedding Dress Company.

Whether you want to be Daisy Buchanan or Jackie Kennedy on your wedding day, you’ll be able to find a dress that isn’t yellowed out by time and will show your distinct style!