It's looking up

As you may remember I have a teeny little problem with the ceilings at our venue - I hate them.

I mean, I don't just hate these particular ceilings, I hate drop ceilings in general. I am not discriminating against our specific venue's ceilings.

Anywho, I have been thinking and thinking and thinking about what to do to create these panels to hang from the ceiling.

Professional ceiling drapery? checked it - over 2 grand just to come out to our venue. Nope.

Gossamer? checked it - possible option, but we used it during sorority recruitment so much and I always said there would be no tulle or gossamer at my wedding, lest my guests or I think they were about to be serenaded and dirty rushed.

Raw fabric? checked it - heavy, lots of sewing, and effort and expensive and effort. I mean, I am trying to graduate here and that = papers galore.

What was I going to do?

A fortunate phone call from my mother came that day;

Mom: "I was thinking," she said, "Why don't we just buy curtains?"

Me: "Curtains, you say? hmmm. Wait! I JUST saw some awesome white curtains on a blog I stalk This Young House!!!!! Mom, you are a genius!"

Mom: "Blog? what is a blog? ohhhhh like that thingie you write...wah wah wah wah wah..."

Yes ladies and gentlemen {ha, jk, no guys read this blog}, we will be using these lovely curtains from Ikea.

 

At $9.99 for a pair of panels - 98.5" x 57" each.

Considering the size of each panel, and that a spot for a dowel is already sewn in on one end, and that Ikea is so awesome that they include iron-on hemming strips in all of their curtain packages for the other end, they are the answer of my dreams.

 

Ok, maybe not my dreams, but they are pretty darn close.

Whew. One ceiling issue solved. Now for the other.

Our Venue is laid out in 6 almost equal sections. Kind of like this:

 

Each section is divided out by a soffit and tables will be placed in the side sections, the bar has a lovely ceiling above it that doesn't call for any decorating.

 

Based on the design that the Women of the Moose {for serious} decorated with at Christmas time, each of these sections will be adorned with panels in a pattern much like this {I think}:

Of course the panels are white, not blue.

But, we don't know what to put in the center! I have thought about tons of those strands of flowers that you saw everywhere in weddings last year, or clusters of paper lanterns, or both, or even doing something only over the dance floor.

Le sigh. What to do, what to do. Any grand ideas out there?