How to Make a Grape Vine Wedding Arch Part Four

We worked for another weekend straight and really have gotten further on the wedding arch. I did not however get any measurements because Justin was not with me very much. I will see if I can get measurements of the metal on the inside of the arch next weekend.

Justin's family had a camp out at his grandmother's house this weekend. While they had the camp out, I kept working on the arch well into dark Saturday and the whole day on Sunday since we ended up sleeping over at Mammy's due to Justin having too much to drink haha. It was pretty chilly outside on Saturday so progress was slow. However I managed to get a decent start. I will list the tools and materials I used to weave the vines onto the arch.

Tools and Materials Needed:

• Gloves
• Green Floral Wire
• Jute Twine
• Wire Cutters
• Pliers
• Small Hand Pruners

This part of the arch process I was in charge of and I pretty much just figured it out as I went along.

I started by getting the longest vines and using the green floral wire and wire cutters I laid the vine along the arch the way I wanted it and then cute approximately 4 in. of wire and wrapped it around the metal and vine as tight as possible and twisted the two ends together. I then clipped off the excess wire and wrapped it around the metal rod.

I apologize for the quality of my pictures this week. They are not the greatest and I forgot to take pictures of many of the steps.

Slowly but surely I kept wrapping the longer vines onto the arch. In the beginning, I weaved what I could in between the rungs of the arch. I found that it was not a necessary step since with out doing this I was able to sit inside the arch and attach the vines with the wire.

How to Make a Grape Vine Wedding Arch Part Three

On Sunday September 8, we finished assembling the metal arch. In order to do this we had to insert the two sides of the arch into the ground. We needed to make sure they were exactly 4 ft. apart from one another and as close to square as possible. We inserted the arch into the ground hitting the stabilizers with a hammer. They work very well as long as your not putting the arch into stone, if you try to hammer them into stone they will bend. Originally we tried to put it together in the driveway which did not work due to the stone. We put the sides in the grass to assemble it so it worked out very well.

 In order to keep the sides square we ended up using the wash line prop rod to keep the one side straight up. We were on a slight incline which caused the side to lean. Use anything you can to keep the sides straight.

Next, we needed to tack on the top of the arch to sides to make sure they are as close to square as possible when we weld it together permanently. Tacking is just pulling the trigger of the welding gun long enough to fuse the two pieces of metal together. This is not where we fully welded the arch to the sides due to safety and the type of welder we used. It is not good for overhead welding which is what Justin was doing here. We ended up backing the truck into the yard for the front side of the arch and using a step stool to stand on the back side of the arch for welding. I do not recommend doing this. You can fall off of the truck or it also poses a fire hazard with the gas tank. This step requires knowledge of welding.

How to Make a Grape Vine Wedding Arch Part Two

Justin and I spent the entire last weekend working on our wedding arch. We got a lot accomplished in only two days!

I left off with my last post about how to take the leaves off the vines and prepare them for wrapping the arch. I was able to get a few good photographs of the "curly things" or tendrils I mentioned and the finished piles of vines.


You do not want to cut the "curly things" or tendrils off of the vines when cutting the leaves off. It adds to the look of the vines and you can use them to hang the decorations on the finished product.

Making Our Grape Vine Wedding Arch

Today we spent the entire day preparing our wedding arch.  We have had many people ask us, "Why start so early?" "You have a whole year?" . Well when you are doing as many DIY projects as we are, something as time consuming as this needs to be started early. Also grape vines need time to dry before they get that nice deep brown look. Yes, some of them are brown already when they are harvested, but many of the ones I picked are still green, so they will need time to dry. I will list step by step how we are making this arch.


We got our inspiration for our arch on Confetti Daydreams. The grape vine garland arch is beautiful but we wanted to create something more sturdy to call our own and keep for years to come.


We decided to make the arch out of natural grape vines and  make the structure from scratch out of steel rods. We chose natural grape vines to save money and to make it out of steel rods instead of buying one because most wedding arches are made out of tubing which is not very sturdy. Plus we can make it our own and say, "Yes, we made that!".

Step One: Find Vines

First we had to find grape vines, which we did not have to go very far to find since Justin's grandmother's land has a lot of them. Ask family members or friends if they have any growing on their property. Here in Pennsylvania, there are lots of grape vines in our woods. Chances are, your friends or family may be happy to have you remove the vines from their property.  I also am glad that I decided to do this, because the vines were starting to kill many of the trees that they were wrapped around on Justin's grandmother's property.

Our Wedding Blog

Hello Friends, Family and Readers!

Justin and I will be posting updates about our DIY wedding projects and wedding planning on this site. I do plan to make a regular wedding site to go with this one that has information about our wedding and updates.

Our wedding is to be a nature inspired outdoor wedding. Our ceremony and  reception will be at the same location. At the gun club my family has run since long before I was born. It has beautiful fields in the middle of the forest on the side of the mountain, and not many people get married there, so it will be perfect for Justin and I since we did not want to get married inside, or at a location that is commonly used and we can make our ceremony and reception completely our own.


We are doing our decorations and many other aspects of our wedding DIY. My father is making  homemade wine and will be cooking for the rehearsal dinner. We are also making the drinks, appetizers, fruit trays, and salads for the cocktail hour and reception ourselves. Originally our wedding was to be completely self catered since my father is an experienced cook. However, with a guest list of over 130 people, it would not have allowed much time for him to enjoy the wedding. So we opted for getting a caterer instead. We will be having almost the same meal that my father would have prepared, so it works out well in the end with him being able to enjoy the day and still being able to make some type of contribution to the food for our big day.

The things we will not be doing our selves are the following:

• The Wedding Cake
• Photography (Not something we wanted to risk skimping on)
• Disc Jockey
• Catering for the main course

Mostly everything else will be hopefully DIY.

Today we spent the entire day working on our wedding arch. I will post in a post after this one about how it is coming along. We are making it completely from scratch. Justin is a welder and is welding the arch from steel. Rather than buying a flimsy one made from tubing that will pose a risk of falling over. The arch will be covered in grape vines which with the help from some friends, we are picking ourselves at his grandmother's homestead. We will probably spend half of the day tomorrow trying to get further along in that project.


I hope to keep up to date with this  blog. I will be posting various posts including pictures and how to instructions to create many of the decorations we are creating.