If you’ve seen photographs from Issy’s wedding, you may have spotted the colourful hot air balloons floating above the tables. Since sharing them, we’ve had so many questions about how they were made, so we thought it was time to share the surprisingly simple DIY behind them.
Made using Chinese paper lanterns, crepe paper, paper cups and miniature baskets, the balloons filled the ceiling of the marquee with colour and made a brilliant alternative to traditional hanging floral arrangements.
If you’re planning a colourful wedding or looking for something a little different to hang above your tables, here’s exactly how Issy made them.
What You’ll Need
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Chinese paper lanterns in a mixture of sizes
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Coloured crepe paper
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Paper cups
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Miniature wicker or wooden baskets
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Brown string
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Clear fishing wire
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Glue gun and glue sticks
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Scissors
Issy used lots of different colours and sizes to create the effect of a whole collection of hot air balloons floating at different heights. There’s no need for every balloon to match. In fact, the mixture of stripes, colours and sizes is what makes them work so well together.
Step 1: Choose Your Paper Lanterns
Start with a selection of Chinese paper lanterns in different sizes. Using a mixture will make the finished display feel much more natural when the balloons are hung together.
You can choose colours to suit your wedding or start with plain lanterns and use the crepe paper to introduce colour and pattern.
Step 2: Create the Hot Air Balloon Shape
To transform the round paper lantern into a more convincing hot air balloon shape, attach a paper cup to the bottom of the lantern.
The cup creates the narrower base of the balloon and helps give the finished decoration its recognisable hot air balloon silhouette. Choose a cup size that works in proportion with your lantern and secure it carefully in place using a glue gun.
Step 3: Decorate With Crepe Paper
Cut long strips of coloured crepe paper and attach them vertically around the lantern and paper cup using a glue gun.
Follow the curve of the lantern and continue the strips down towards the narrower base created by the cup. This helps bring the two pieces together visually and makes them look like one balloon.
This is where you can have fun with the design. Issy created different combinations of stripes and colours rather than making every balloon identical.
Step 4: Attach the Miniature Basket
Cut four equal lengths of brown string and attach them around the base of the balloon, bringing them down to meet the miniature basket.
Secure each piece of string to the basket so it hangs evenly underneath. The basket should sit a little way below the balloon to create the classic hot air balloon shape.
Step 5: Hang Your Hot Air Balloons
Use clear fishing wire to suspend each balloon from the ceiling of your marquee or venue.
Hang them at different heights rather than in one straight line. Issy mixed larger and smaller balloons throughout the marquee, which helped create the feeling of them floating above the tables.
Before hanging anything, always check with your venue or marquee company about what can safely be suspended from the ceiling and the best way to attach your decorations.
For a Winter Wedding
For a winter wedding, you could add small battery-powered LED tealights inside the paper lanterns to create a warm glow as the light fades. Hung together at different heights, the illuminated balloons would create a lovely glowing hot air balloon effect above the tables.
Always use battery-powered LED lights rather than real candles or flames inside paper lanterns!
A Colourful Alternative to Hanging Flowers
One of the loveliest things about these hot air balloons is the amount of colour and impact they bring to a space without relying on large hanging floral installations.
They work particularly well in a marquee, where filling some of the empty space overhead can completely transform the room. You can choose colours that complement your table flowers, linens and glassware, or deliberately mix contrasting shades for a more playful effect.
And once you’ve worked out the first one, making the rest is surprisingly straightforward. The more you make, the better the final collection looks.
A simple idea, but one that made a huge difference to Issy’s wedding marquee and created one of our favourite details from the day.
