Rustic DIY Wedding Arch Made from Cedar Trees

I’m sharing more rustic wedding ideas, like this DIY wedding arch we made for our son’s wedding.  It was definitely a labor of love and while I helped a great deal, my husband provided the muscle and did the hard work!

Originally, my son and his best friend were the ones that planned on making the wedding arch.  Due to covid, my son was unable to come home (he lives 5hrs away).  That left me and my husband with the task.  Oy!   Y’all, being the overachiever that I am, I took on the challenge without even asking my husband. LOL  Bless his heart!

The ranch we live on and work for (October 2020 will be 12 years!), is FULL of cedar trees.  The ranch consists of about 42 sections (maybe a little more). I’ll let you do the math….640 acres equals 1 section.  Needless to say, we had a lot to choose from out here.  Since we were on a budget with this wedding, we knew we weren’t gonna buy wood but it also meant we had to put in the extra effort and time to find and cut down trees.

We headed to a pasture, that we know has tall cedars, with a chainsaw in hand.  Now, y’all, my cowboy is pushing 50 and works his tail off.  He’s always been a great tree climber but when he took to that tall tree WITH a chainsaw in hand, I wasn’t sure if I should be terrified or turned on!

Something we learned during this process, is that it’s very important to do this WAY ahead of time…like, months and even longer.  The cedars need time to dry out.  Ours had sap pouring out of them which made them super sticky to work with.  We dealt with it and made it work but it was messy!  You definitely will need some good soap to get it off. I had to use a scrubber!  You can see it on my arm.    We used a sucker rod to make the metal pieces that would connect the top to sides.  You can buy a 2×4 board to help stabilize it. We already had the boards but it was really helpful so that it wouldn’t topple over.

All in all, we were thrilled with how it turned out and it looked beautiful in front of the barn.  I didn’t notice at the time but looking at the photos, it even lines up with the barn door to form a cross.  Aww!!

Our Falcon family minus my nephew and his wife who live in Montana.

The arch flowers were made by a lovely local woman who was way generous with her supplies and efforts.  Add some fabric and viola!  What type of fabric you choose is totally dependent on your preference.  I went with chiffon fabric for the wedding arch drapery because it’s less shiny for photos.   The arch measured over 6ft from inside to inside and about 8.5ft tall.  It’s heavy!

I’ll be sharing more of our DIY wedding ideas for those who are also on a budget!  In the meantime, you can check out my DIY wedding fan that doubles as a program, if you haven’t already.