Bride’s Get Crafty & Creative with Centerpieces
Let’s talk décor! We find that most of our brides that book with us, want to bring a creative element and uniqueness to their special day. One of the most important responsibilities of planning and coordinating a wedding is talking about décor. As much as The Sunset Weddings want to sell and provide you with our “in-house” centerpieces, we understand that it’s not for everyone! We also understand that working with a florist or a personal decorator is just as amazing. However, we love and support the DIY bride and like to see the ideas that bloom from the couple. Throughout the year we saw some amazing centerpieces get brought in from brides and want to share them with you all. We reached out to our brides about how their DIY experience was and if they wanted to share them with us. We were excited to see the amount of response we received back! We hope this post might spark an idea for décor in your house, or maybe your future wedding! As much as we would love to share every special centerpiece, we would be here all day with all of them, instead we highlighted a couple different ones to share.
Brooklyn & Seth:
Brooklyn and Seth were married with us in November, and they brought a beautiful yet simple beach theme to their tables. Brooklyn dropped off her centerpieces and trusted us to set them up and get their colors to come together for a magical sight. Here are some words from Brooklyn and her process:
“My mom actually bought 9 vases full to the top with sand and shells from a previous wedding at a garage sale when Seth and I got engaged. They weren’t really what I had in mind, so I took all the shells out and went to work.
I tried to make sure that all the vases had roughly the same amount of sand and then I kind of shimmied them back and forth to make sure the sand was flat. I picked out the prettiest shells from the literal hundred that came with the vases and placed them randomly in the vase. Something was still missing. I ran to Walmart to get pillar candles. I remember calling Seth and asking if I should get ivory or white. He said “uhhhh ivory??” I got white haha! I put a pillar candle in the center of each vase and then placed my favorite shells around the candle with about 1/2″-1″ in between the shells. I still wasn’t happy with the final product, so I took a strip of greenery from a decoration I had and wrapped it around one of the centerpieces and loved the little bit of color it added. I still thought it needed more, so when Seth and I were visiting his grandparents, his nanny and I went to Hobby Lobby and found the crackled glass votives and I knew they were the perfect finishing touch! I mostly worked on them by myself, but Seth would like to think he helped too. I had so much fun working on them and felt so accomplished after.
Not only did we save quite a bit of money, but I put my own personal touch on them and made them exactly how I wanted. I would absolutely keep
them the same if I had to do it all over again.”
Michel’lee & Nate: Michel’lee and Nate were married with us in November and we coordinated with them and Debbie, the groom’s mom, closely for their special day. Here are some words from Debbie and the masterpiece they put together:
“Full of excitement and enthusiasm for my son’s wedding, my sister-in-law and myself started making plans on centerpieces for approximately 16 five foot round tables. We asked Michel’lee to send us pictures of ideas she liked. Both Nate and Michel’lee were adamant that they didn’t want flowers on the tables. So, we started visiting various craft stores to see what we could come up with for a tropical setting. We started with Michaels where we found rope lights and decorative burlap. We bought one set of lights to do a trial run. Later one we ended up being determined that we could make our own rope lights by ordering bulk battery bright lights from Amazon and glued them on rope purchased from Michaels. Votive candles were purchased to add to the setting. We bought various wine glasses and goblets at the dollar store and filled them with coral color sand. The various size wine glasses and goblets were also filled with tiny shells and tea light candles.
Not all tables would be wine glasses, the others would be sand, and shell filled message bottles purchased from Curious Cargo. On the table with the message bottle would be three goblet vases filled with sand, seashells and tea lights. We purchased coral and natural colored starfish, shells from Curious Cargo, and smaller shells from Hobby Lobby. Throughout our trial run we changed the burlap runner to burlap with lace. The runners were sewn on each end to form a “v” point. In an effort to ensure each table looked elegant, we used a navy-blue tablecloth on a five-foot round table and scattered the right amount of shells and starfish. When determined the setting was perfect, we bagged the shells in gallon freezer bags. We continued to select the right shells and starfish for a continuous 15 more bags. Each bag was individually ready to be set up on each table.”
Tori & Jason: Tori and Jason were married with us in March and had one of the most unique set ups under the Sunset Tiki Hut. There wedding ceremony incorporated Sunset Weddings, very own custom driftwood arch. Tori loved the driftwood theme and ran with it. Not only did she incorporate driftwood, she incorporated sand and flowers to bring everything in for an elegant look for her tables. Her look was to have it be clean and simple, with a touch of rustic and glamour. Here are a few words from Tori and her experience with her wedding crafts:
“I had a specific idea in my head about the driftwood theme since we were using the driftwood arch for our ceremony.
I was searching high and low for driftwood and was getting very frustrated as I lived in Florida but it was very expensive to buy from the local stores and it is illegal to take from the beaches I started to get hopeless until my amazing aunt found a website, and it became special for her to help find it for me. I bought my driftwood from a pet supply company online. The driftwood was actually aquarium driftwood.
I pulled ideas from Pinterest that incorporated the flowers I was using in my bouquet and other beach related items and made it up as I went. I made all the centerpieces myself. I bought most of the items including glitter for table numbers and candles at Michaels craft store. They always have the greatest sales and you can always find a coupon or two. The shells, sand, and empty glass bottles all were bought on Amazon. I found it very therapeutic to do the crafts, and I had a lot of fun doing the centerpieces. I put a lot of love into them as we were on a budget. I feel they came out beautifully and I got a lot of compliments on them. I gifted them out to family after the wedding after they were requested by the guests.”
Chelsea & Paul: Chelsea and Paul were married with us in October and during their detail meetings, Chelsea had mentioned she was allergic to real flowers. Not just a certain type of flower, allergic to all. So, the discussion of centerpieces and bouquets got interesting and creative due to the seriousness of her allergy. She still managed to incorporate flowers by finding a unique and beautiful item. The flowers were delicately made from shaved wood. Here are a couple words from Chelsea and her centerpiece project:
“The benefit of a beach wedding is that nature does the work for you! I knew that the focal point of my wedding wasn’t the color scheme, the venue or the centerpieces (although I, like all brides, put an exorbitant amount of time into picking each one), but rather on the natural beauty of Anna Maria Island. So, the inspiration for my centerpieces was really to play second fiddle – a necessary instrument, but not the main show. I looked at hundreds of pins on Pinterest and ultimately decided on water, glass and gold as my features. I came up with the vision, but Stefanie was the real MVP in making the centerpieces a dream come true! They were perfect! Simple, elegant and befitting to the natural beauty of the beach and the venue. I reused votives, and the square vases from a friend’s wedding. The various sized cylinder vases, floating candles, and table number LED tealights I bought on Amazon. Lastly the table numbers were found and purchased on Etsy as well. One of the most incredible finds were the flowers! To be honest, I didn’t put a whole lot of thought into my centerpieces until I found Quinnie’s store! I decided to reuse the wood flowers for a mixed media art piece that will hang in our bedroom to remind us of the best week of our lives! These flowers are made using shaved tapioca wood and are absolutely stunning! I would not change a thing, except maybe ask Mother Nature to lay off the wind – our candle flames kept getting blown out!”
Rachel & Bize: Rachel and Bize were married with us in November and had a very bright and colorful theme under the tiki hut. They incorporated three different colors of royal blue, purple plum, and pops of lime green. We took care of chair sashes and linens to add to the color under the hut, but Rachel made her own centerpieces to add to the colorful table setting. Her centerpieces looked like something out of a fairy tale with the magic of the glowing lights and colors together. Some advice from Rachel and her centerpiece art:
“If you are looking for an elegant and simple look, this is the way to go. Probably the BEST thing about working with alcohol ink (bought at Hobby Lobby) is that if you make a mistake or want to start over on one of your pieces, all you have to do is spray the glass with alcohol and the ink comes right off!! Very user friendly!! However, it DOES stain your hands!! It comes off eventually in the shower, but I would recommend gloves! I also bought my vases at Hobby Lobby as well. Here are the steps I took to make these beautiful pieces—it was easy and fun! I should also note that my friend and I looked at many different You Tube videos to get different ideas from all different people—this helped me pick the “look” I wanted. I chose NOT to do the acrylic paint on the inside of my centerpieces because I wanted the translucent look. I used a “natural sponge” from Walmart and I tore the rubber off a stamp and hot glued pieces of the sponge onto the stamper. I also made sure that the piece of sponge on the stamper was only ½ inch to ¾ of an inch thick. The clear coat to put on afterwards I bought from Walmart as well. One of my best friend’s daughter helped me. I have known her since she was 10, made me feel a tad old but it was cool that she helped because she is like a sister to me and my real sisters still live in WI—they came for the wedding and are pictured below! We laughed a lot as we tried all different types of methods to figure out the look that I really wanted.”
Jennifer & Daniel: Jen & Daniel were married in March and brought the classic something blue and white to the tiki hut. They had a lot of friends and family to celebrate, and now the couple will be expecting a new born to start their family together! A few words from Jen and her experience:
“We purchased a small centerpiece in a glass, round vase with hydrangea flowers from a local florist, Ms. Scarlett’s Flowers from Bradenton. I bought the remainder of the items (blue gems, mirror base) from Amazon & Old Time Pottery.
I used Pinterest as my inspiration (of course) and did a trial run about a week prior to the wedding to make sure it was to my liking, which it was. Ms. Scarlett’s put their flower centerpiece which included white roses and hydrangeas on each table on top of the mirror base, and my lovely coordinators at Gulf Drive set the colored gems around the mirror & middle of table, per my instructions. They did a fabulous job at it!! My coordinators also put out the table number frames (printed from Etsy to match my blue color scheme) once the centerpieces were set.They came out better than expected I would keep it the same again!! My favorite part was looking at the finished product, knowing all the planning & trips to Old Time Pottery were worth it.”
Well, you saw it here! Get your glue guns, glitter, and shells out to start your crafty mind going. Here, at The Sunset Weddings we can always help you with ideas, and the process of getting your decor started. The best ways to get an idea forming is to research on Etsy, Pinterest, Google, and maybe even go garage sale shopping. Craft stores like Hobby Lobby, and Michaels are a great way to start too, just remember you can save money by browsing stores like the Goodwill or Amazon to get those items you can get at a local craft store. Thank you for reading and happy crafting everyone!
