8 Barn Wedding Decoration Ideas to Transform Your Day

There ain’t no wedding like a barn wedding. 

You know it, and you want one too… but you’re running low on barn wedding decoration ideas and are not sure what to do. 

Well, this article is written with you in mind, and it will hopefully help get your mind going. 

Actually, this article is more of a list. 

Whatever the case, we wrote it to help you and, importantly, we tried to explain why each of these suggestions is included. 

The key is to stay on-theme and to integrate/balance everything. 

1. Brass Candlesticks

Let’s start off easy with one we’ve mentioned before in a previous article. 

At their core, most barn wedding venues are designed to embody a kind of traditional and maybe even vintage rural Americana. 

So, naturally, the best barn wedding decoration ideas are those that will represent that. 

And few things fit into that vintage Americana theme better than brass candlesticks. 

They’re rugged without being too rough and classy without being fragile or too opulent. 

They’re the sort of thing that a farming family in the 1920s would have likely had in their house. 

2. Flowers (and/or Honey) in Jars

You’re in a barn, not a ballroom. 

So, you don’t need to put your flowers in antique porcelain vases. 

Instead, keep things simple (and affordable) with glass jars. 

You know, the sorts of jars you’d store pickles or jams in. 

That’s something people used to do a lot and should probably start doing again, considering all the chemicals the food companies keep dosing us with. 

Anyway, they look nice and fit perfectly with a rural America aesthetic (which is the aesthetic you’re most likely going for with a barn wedding). 

But on the subject of flowers, let’s get more specific…

3. Sunflowers! 🌻

Especially during the warmer months, sunflowers are emblematic of rural America. 

To make it better, they can grow to be pretty huge. 

That makes them great ingredients in a wide variety of barn wedding decoration ideas. 

And in a barn wedding venue, they’ll match seamlessly with most of what’s likely already there, from the wooden beams and tin sheeting to the tablecloths and cartwheel chandeliers. 

And if your wedding isn’t scheduled for one of the warmer months, don’t worry, because you can dry sunflowers to preserve them (without chemicals). 

Which brings us to…

4. Dried Flowers & Fruits

Winter isn’t the only time of the year when you can decorate with dried flowers and fruits. 

However, they often look particularly elegant during the cold months, especially when matched with pinecones, branches, and other foliage. 

And why not add some of that other stuff, too? 

When it comes to flowers and fruits, you can dry and dehydrate just about anything, from daisies and baby’s breath to apples and oranges. 

Then you can mix and match them based on color, season, and even scent. 

And they all look even better when paired with…

5. Antlers, Horseshoes, and Other Animal Stuff

Barns are built for farms, and farms very frequently have animals on them, like cows, horses, and chickens. 

Even if they don’t have livestock, they’ll certainly have other wild animals around. 

Think deer, raccoons, foxes, ducks, owls, and freshwater fish like trout and largemouth bass. 

You can incorporate photos or paintings of these animals, as well as different objects associated with them. 

These might include things like saddles, lassos, antique fishing poles, and so on. 

6. String Lights

Mostly, people use these outside, but you can just as easily set them up inside the barn itself. 

Either way, they make everything look very elegant, particularly as the sun starts going down. 

It also helps that they’re not too expensive, and you can get a lot of them for not a lot of money. 

If you can, get shatterproof bulbs so you won’t need to worry about needing to pick through the grass for glass shards at any point before or after the ceremony.

7. American Flag(s)

Like we said, barn weddings are all about vintage, rural Americana. 

Lean into that. 

Embrace it. 

Put up a flag or two, or find some knick-knacks, antiques, and other things with the flag on them. 

All sorts of random stuff has been painted with the American flag throughout the years, from decorative buntings to watering cans and antique bicycles. 

Think of all the things you’d find on the wall of a Cracker Barrel, and you’ll start getting ideas. 

8. Old Photos

Bonus points if they’re in vintage frames. 

These photos don’t even need to be of you or your family. 

They can be random vintage photos you’ve found that have an aged look to them and depict quaint scenes of eras past. 

Or you can buy a Polaroid camera and go around the area together, taking random shots of each other with nature scenes, bridges, and other things that just happen to be within a 25-mile radius of your barn venue. 

You should probably include some photos of yourselves and your family, though. 

Create a Sense of Place

The whole point of having a barn wedding is not to have a standard wedding in a wedding hall in the city or something like that. 

And why would you want to do that? 

To have a clear sense of place, of course. 

You’re getting out of the city to see and experience something that you wouldn’t normally see there. 

Likewise, if you’re not from the city, you choose to live where you do for the same reason. 

So, try to make sure that all of your barn wedding decoration ideas do something to further enhance that iconic rural America style and vibe.