Non Floral Centerpiece

Today I was perusing my favorite blogs and found this picture of a nonfloral centerpiece. I love flowers but I also enjoy finding interesting and beautiful nonfloral centerpieces. Let's face it flowers can get expensive and to find creative way to do something other than just a candle is wonderful! I really like this centerpiece because it is still using plants but instead different kinds of leaves, which I find really interesting and appealing.

Picture taken from E Lucky, Photo by TM Photography, Florist: Katie Elfers

DIY Flower Tip

Many of you know that I DIYed a bunch of items in my wedding. One being our centerpieces. I love, love, love fresh flowers but my budget couldn't handle the cost of a florist. For under 100 dollars I bought all the flowers for my centerpieces. Our vases cost 75 cents a piece and the candles were party packs bought at hobby lobby with their 40% off coupons. All in all with tax each centerpiece came in somewhere between 10-11 dollars, pretty good I would say. I will make sure to post pictures once I get them.

But anyways because they were real flowers we couldn't do them to far ahead. Meaning at 11pm the night before my wedding my sister and I rolled up our sleeves to make the centerpieces. Luckily I had numbers on my side, we only had to make 10. To be more efficient we set up an assembly line with Tiffany cutting the stems and myself arranging and finessing.

Picture of trial until the professional pictures are ready

The idea was to get the ball/dome shape of tightly packed roses. So what I did was cut a piece of ribbon for the height of the rose in the middle, the tallest. Tiffany used this ribbon as a guide for every single rose. She cut all the roses in each centerpiece the exact same using this ribbon, put them in the vase and handed them to me. Then I would start at the outside trimming all the roses and arranging them to get the dome shape. The ribbon trick allowed Tiffany to quickly cut all the roses the same height so that everything would be uniform. This also allowed her to do so with efficiency so that she finished quickly enough to be able to help me with the final finessing. The centerpieces weren't perfect but they were definitely good enough. I don't know how a real florist would feel about this method but it worked for us. Between the two of us we were able to complete them in about an hour and fifteen minutes.

Centerpiece

Here is a centerpiece from my vault of inspiration pictures and ideas. It's simple but still cute and chic. I love all the layers of raununculus.

Holiday Decor

If your wedding is going to be later this winter or next holiday season in the next few days there are going to be tons of great deals. Make sure to get out there and find items that can be used in ways other than their holiday purposes. Maybe a tree topper could be a cake topper, tinsel scattered around votive candles, gift tags as escort cards, the sky is the limit. Here is a centerpiece I created, that would be perfect for a winter wedding, for less than $10 at full price and that includes the cost of the vase . So think about what you could do with items from After Christmas sales.

Happiness in a Vase

Flowers make me gloriously happy. I would chose a bouquet of fresh flowers over chocolate and jewelrey any day of the week. So the thought of not being able to have fresh floral centerpieces bummed me out a bit. Not having an unlimited budget meant floral centerpieces weren't high on the need list and in fact aren't on the need list but I really really really want list.

A few weeks ago I was on the west side of town and near a store that sells glass pieces and candles at a discount. I thought I would browse through the store just to see what they had and thought maybe I would find something that would spark some ideas. As I walked up and down the aisles I came across these cute mini huricanne glasses that are in the perfect shade of purple to go with our colors. I turned the glass over to be only more excited that they are just $0.75 a pop. Instantly my brain was buzzing with different ideas of using them with candles on the bar, on the guest book table or even maybe with flowers too. I bought only one because I wanted to take it home, get opinions and try a few things out before I was stuck with too many mini hurricanes glasses that I couldn't return.

A week later I was grocery shopping at Fresh Market when I passed by the floral department. Even if I am not going to buy flowers I always stop and look at them just to enjoy their beauty. As I was looking I came upon a dozen orange unique roses, most likely the orange rose we will be using in all of the bouquets. I thought back to the mini hurricane vase sitting on my counter at home and scooped up the dozen to see if just maybe my mini purple vase/candle holder would work with the orange roses.

Well when I got home and put the roses in the vase I was absolutely delighted! My preference for centerpieces are low (so you can see everyone across the table), tight, lush and full. One dozen roses fit perfectly into the mini vase, looking full and lush. I loved them but made sure to get a few other opinions before settling and well everyone else loved them too! Andy even made a comment at how nice the flowers looked before I told him they were our centerpiece mock-up. The flowers are going on a round mirror provided by our reception venue and surrounded by 5 votives. Even though in all the pictures the vase looks black it definitely isn't and when on the mirror with candles lit they illuminate the vase showing off the purple hue. The pictures aren't great but they give you a good sense of what it looks like.

I have since been back to the store to buy many more mini purple hurricane vases. I have some different options of where I will be able to wholesale order orange roses at $6-7 a dozen. I plan on buying votives from Hobby Lobby during their next half off sale. All combined I we will be able to make the centerpieces at just under or at $10 each. I am giddy with delight that even on a budget we are going to get real floral centerpieces that are still gorgeous, classy and if I must say elegant. I am quite possibly in love with the centerpieces and have realized: yes, you can find happiness in a vase.