Check out my final presentation:

In this section of my final report, I will detail exactly how I made my industrial/rustic aesthetic wedding arch. Shown below is a flow chart highlighting my design, iteration, and creative problem solving journey in order to complete this project.

Each block represents about a week’s worth of time. I first began by deciding which aesthetic I would try to achieve and what “thing” I would try to make. After I decided on a wedding arch, I got to work designing it. I ended up redesigning the arch about 3 different times due to lack of resources because of COVID-19. I spent the majority of Spring Break working on this redesign.

I found creative ways to build my arch without needing a machine shop or other on-campus resources. By using foam-core ABS piping and pipe cutters, I could make my arch, although not out of copper as originally intended.

The upside of this is that it gave me a lot of leeway to cut the pipes exactly as intended since it was easy to change. By using cheaper, lighter materials, I was really able to iterate. The shape of my arch’s base was originally way to big, bigger than I pictured when I was designing it. It took only about 30 minutes to cut the base down and make it smaller.

Once I got the shape of the arch exactly the way that I wanted it, because my design is completely deconstruct-able, I could take my time and paint it really nicely.

If not for the pandemic, I would have wanted to make this out of copper, even though it is expensive. I also wanted to do my own floral arrangements, but since all craft and flower stores are closed, I had to order what looked like a good alternative.

I’m not as pleased with the flowers as I think I would have been if I had been able to pick them out and arrange them as originally intended. I want the flowers to be more full. Once stores re-open, I really want to improve upon this and find the light fixtures that I originally intended on using.

I am really pleased with how the Himmeli inspired, geometric icosahedrons turned out. This was a great upcycling mini-project as well because it uses straws in a way that saves them from ending up in landfills or the ocean.

Concluding Statements:

I really loved the way this project turned out despite the setbacks. I certainly have some next steps to fully achieve my aesthetic, including working on the lighting fixtures and the flowers. I intend to use this at my wedding in July and it has become central in guiding the rest of my wedding aesthetic and all the other things that I am building and making for my wedding. It was really important to me that this project was easy to assemble and disassemble and I think that I achieved that as well. I started with a vision of non-traditional wedding decor and I ended up establishing the aesthetic that will guide the rest of my decisions for my wedding.