TentLogix and Stonehouse Events turn an empty lot into a high-end wedding venue

A striking color scheme and exquisite details come together under tents that weren’t originally in the plan.

A Tampa, Fla., couple selected a venue under construction for their May 2017 wedding in the hopes of giving their 450 guests a new experience. But five months before the celebration, they learned that the venue wouldn’t be completed in time. Wedding planner Cindy Stonehouse of Stonehouse Events, Tampa, turned to plan B: a tented event. The tent plan required a revised budget focused on the bride’s highest priorities. “My goal is always that I’m capturing the bride and groom,” Stonehouse says. “Anybody can create something beautiful, but when you create something that absolutely reflects the couple and everyone knows it, then you’ve really done something.”

Balanced color scheme

TentLogix of Fort Pierce, Fla., turned an empty lot in downtown Tampa into a memorable black-tie event venue by installing a 15-by-40-meter cocktail tent and a 30-by-40-meter reception tent, plus floors, power, air-conditioning, restrooms, a kitchen, walkways and support equipment. Underneath, Stonehouse created the bride’s vision of a black, white and red color scheme paired with a flower wall and extensive greenery. That combination can be tricky—out of balance, the room can look too much like a checkerboard, Christmas or Valentine’s Day, or even Goth, Stonehouse says. “You have to think about every piece and be very intentional about everything you do and why you are doing it,” she says.

Defining details

A black tent liner along the center of the tent helped the chandeliers stand out rather than blend in with the ceiling. “It defined the entryway [to the main reception tent] as it went up from the entrance and over to the band,” Stonehouse says. Big and small details—including three large black-and-white photographs of the couple in the backdrop behind the band, a black dance floor and an invitation to “Come away with us” greeting guests in the cocktail tent—wowed the family and guests, who remarked that they felt loved from the moment they entered the tented space. “To point out that they felt loved in all of the details was very powerful and a really fantastic response,” Stonehouse says.