Center Pieces

Ahhh, yes. Centerpieces! The foundation for tying Dave and Chris to the reception hall: the decor element that will turn our beautiful mountain venue into our wedding.

Sorry Knot ladies - I changed the first photo to the actual centerpiece hoping that it would eliminate confusion.

We wanted something simple, elegant, and rustic. I loved the idea of pairing outdoor elements with glass and mirrors, and knew that the centerpieces would involve only a few flowers, the mirrors from my Matron of Honor's wedding, and lots of river rocks. Previously I had seen photos of 'submerged' flower centerpieces and fell in love with the idea. Not only would I save money by eliminating large bouquets on each table, but because the flowers inside the centerpiece would be underwater they would not wilt in the July heat. While out shopping for bridesmaid dresses on Saturday, we went to Micheal's Craft store to find vases and candles. We easily decided on 7" square cube vases, one for each table, at a cost of $11.99 each. I am currently searching ads for brides who have used them before and want to sell them, hoping to save money on what is the most expensive element of our centerpieces! Last week I found several yards of champagne taffeta with embroidered flowers on it at JoAnn fabrics. I bought six yards of it to create table runners; something I definitely would not have done were it not a ridiculous price! Normally selling for $22.00/yard, I got all 6 yards for less than $18.00. The 6 yards is enough to create 12 runners, which I think will add elegance and depth to the plain ivory table cloths that Wild Basin is providing for us.

This same taffeta fabric goes perfectly with the bedding set Dave and I have registered for, and after the wedding (assuming it's still in good shape, which most of it should be) a few yards of it will be turned in to pillow shams. Sounds like a deal to me, especially considering the cost of purchasing pillow shams new!

Theresa brought over the mirrors she used in her wedding (does this count as my 'something borrowed?) and we brought home some real flowers, tea light candles, and floating candles.

The result? A stunning centerpiece that ties together our rustic, elegant mountain wedding. Theresa and Kirstin both said "wow! This looks like you brought the river inside." The candles reflect light off of both the water and the mirrors, and in both daylight and dark the result is beautiful. The flowers in the vase are a combination of real and fake Irises and Hydrangeas.

At our tasting in October they brought out color samples of the napkins they offer. We tentatively decided on a brown center napkin (to be replaced by the taffeta runners) and green napkins for each place setting. Now that our centerpieces have been created, we all unanimously decided that the place setting napkin should be brown (see photo). Although this is not a brown wedding, it is an earthy color and it allows the flowers in the vase to pop. It looks great against the table runner and really lends a cohesive look to the whole table.

Against my original plan I bought simple, ivory linen card stock menu cards on clearance ($5.00 for 60 of them at Michaels). They look fantastic tucked into the napkin, and even though they really are just more garbage at the end of the night (unfortunately), I like the idea of letting our guests know what they will be served. The food at our venue is fantastic, and I love adding the menu cards to make it feel just that much more gourmet. I was really impressed with the menu cards at Dave and Laurens wedding and liked having that to look at and talk about with the other guests at our table.

So they aren't a complete waste, the reverse will have information on it for our guests to upload their digital photos of our wedding at home to a shared account on snapfish.com.

We lit all the candles last night and let them burn until they died on their own. Assuming that our candles will be lit around 5pm, they should last until 9pm or so - I may look for higher-quality candles or have a friend on 'candle' duty so that we have a candle-lit room once the sun goes behind the mountains.

I picked up a bunch of fake hydrangeas and irises (again, on clearance! I never pay full price for anything. . . ) and you can't tell looking at them under water that they are fake. At the wedding we won't have to worry about real flowers dying overnight or in transport, which is a huge relief.

We'll need about 8 center pieces, and each one will be prepared before the wedding. Inside the vase there will be all 11 candles (6 tea lights and 5 floaties), 4 mirrors (yes, that is 4 separate mirrors in the photo!), the table runner, 3 pounds of river rocks (2 for in the vase and one pound to scatter on the table), 8 menu cards, 8 photography cards (the Sharber's are giving us business cards with one of our favorite engagement photos printed on the front and information for our guests about how/and when to view our wedding album online after the event), and a few random flowers. Whomever gets put on 'reception decorating duty' will just have to unpack everything onto the table and then somebody can follow and fill each vase with water.

I calculated the cost of the centerpeices (assuming I have to pay full price for the vases and candles, although I think I can get them cheaper) and found out that I'm looking at $27.00/table. Not bad! I think I can get it down to $20.00, which is a total of $80-$100 for the entire reception hall. Most floral centerpeices average $50.00/table or more, so I think we're doing pretty good!