I'm going to start this post by saying that I LOVE fresh flowers. I love the look and smell of them! What I do not love is the price tag attached to them. Honestly, if I could afford justify the cost, I would buy fresh cut flowers weekly to have displayed on my kitchen island. Alas, I am not made of money-and when it came to my wedding I felt the same way. I would have loved to have all fresh flowers-but I couldn't fathom spending hundreds to thousands of dollars on something that would get thrown away at the end of the day. To save a bit of money, I decided to use fresh flowers for all bouquets, boutonnieres, and corsages-but use fake or silk flowers for everything else.
There were 2 different centerpieces that I particularly liked and knew would be relatively easy to replicate. The first was submerged flowers in 3 tiered vases with a floating candle on top. The second was a floral pomander atop a tall vase with uplighting, crystal beading 'dripping' down, and and river rock in the bottom.
My Inspiration Pictures:
My favorite flower in the whole world is an orchid. Lucky for me, orchids replicate very well in silks and really do look like the real deal. I used both white and fushia silk orchids and took the buds off of the stems. I bought my floating candles at IKEA and 7.5" vases from the dollar tree. The 6" and 10" vases were rented from my florist. It turned out to be a very pretty and inexpensive centerpiece.
For my pomanders, I found a tutorial at "The DIY Bride" blog on how to make tissue paper pomanders. It was very easy to do, but also very time consuming. Supplies included royal blue tissue paper (found at Target), floral wire, and 6" styrofoam balls. To make the task of putting together hundreds of floral "buds" less cumbersome, I created my own personal assembly line. Stage 1: cut and accordion fold a dozen or so 3"x4" rectangles (each rectangle consisted of 5 sheets of tissue paper). Step 2: Fold in half and insert between a piece of floral wire that is also folded in half. The fold on the tissue paper should line up with the fold of the floral wire. Twist the ends of the floral wire around the bottom of the tissue paper to hold it in place. Step 3: pull apart each layer tissue paper and form into a flower. REPEAT. This made the process go a lot faster. I did not put the flowers into the styrofoam ball until just a couple days before the wedding so that the transfer from IA to MN would be a lot easier. (Could you imagine transferring 6 large pomanders in a car already packed full of wedding supplies and a wedding dress?!?)
As for the crystal drip hanging from each pomander-I bought the beads from Michaels and strung them about 20" long on bead wire, which I attached to floral wire and hot glued into the bottom of the pomander. See video below for more detailed and step-by-step instructions.
At the bottom of the vase were royal blue glass stones. The 30" pilsner vase and flameless lights were rented from my florist.
I really can't even begin to describe just how breath-taking our reception hall looked when we saw it for the first time! I have to give huge props to my florist, Deven Nelson. She is the sole reason that our room looked as beautiful as it did. Her hard work and understanding of my vision is what made my centerpieces glow. I received so many compliments that night for how amazing everything looked - and that made all of the late night crafting sessions, trial/error frustrations, and tired/sore hands completely worth it!
Next up: Ceremony decorations (yes, I realize I'm going backwards).
