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Alternatives to Expensive Floral Centerpieces

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beautifuldisaster

beautifuldisaster

Shiny_Rock
Joined
Mar 22, 2005
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129
Hey girls :)

I am curious if anyone has an alternative ideas to a floral centerpiece?

I went to meet with a florist last weekend while in Hilton Head (where my beach wedding will be held) and I learned that my flowers alone will be close to $3k. While my parents have no problem with this amount, I think I could use some of that money for other things. I wondered if there was any way I could save about $1,200 by not having expensive floral centerpieces.


The idea of making them myself is not something that I want to do, as I will be stressed out enough and don’t think I could mentally deal.


Does anyone have any alternatives that still look elegant? I would love any photos or ideas.


Thanks a lot!
 
What about little tea candles with rose petals scattered around them? I''ve seen that and thought it looked really nice.

Or, you could look into Do It Yourself flowers. I know a woman who did that for her center pieces. She just had red and pink roses in a vase. It was the nicest wedding I ever went to. Very simple and elegant.

I have the same problem. I LOVE flowers but it''s hard for me to rationalize spending thousands on something that''s going to die within a day or two...
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I agree with candles. It looks very pretty, esp. if you keep the rest of the lighting low, you can do a lot with colours that way..

i also saw buckets of fruit! looked very cool, think bowls of lemon or green apples or lime, oranges maybe?

also, don''tknow if that will be cheaper than flowers, and that''s herbs. You know, thyme and that sorta stuff. I *think* i''ve seen that on theknott. Check it out..

good luck!
 
One friend who had a fall wedding took hurricane lamps and filled the bottoms/sides with cranberries around a tall pillar candle. It looked fantastic.

Another friend who is getting married the end of August is going to use red apples in bowls for her center pieces. Everything for her has been red... the text on invitations, envelope lining, BM dresses, etc.

Another wedding had different colored gerber daisys in various containers on tables. Looked great and the girl did it herself the night before. It really was just the flowers in the vases.

I thought about doing the same as above with the daisies, but come to find out, they are expensive right now (or in august). So when we asked what would be cheap, the woman told us hydrangeas which works out great because its what our bouquets will be made out of. So we ordered the flowers through a grocery store florist and we are going to put them all together ourselves.

How about hurricane lamps with a pillar candle filled with sand and a couple sea shells? Sand is cheap!
 
-I''ve seen a bunch of candles of varying heights gathered to gether with a few petals sprinkled, very simple and elegant.
-Same idea with just a candelabra with some vined wrapped around it.
-Love the fruits idea (pears! I love that "a perfect pear" theme!).
-I''ve seen people just group their favors together in an interesting way and use that as a center piece (on a cake stand?).
-A tray of miniature desserts.
-Individual flowers in bud vases - very easy to asseble and can double as favors.
-My friend went to garden ridge and bought these tall clear vases, filled them with water and had sunken orchids -- very simple, very elegant and dramatic, and very very VERY inexpensive since it was only one flower per table.
-Same vases, only with the chinese/japanese fighting fish -- GORGEOUS!!! very dramatic, very different, and they were given to the guest to take home at the end (lottery system - the guest who had a sticker underneath their plate) -- I LOVE this idea, but it doesn''t match my wedding -- someone USE IT!!!
-Or go to flea markets etc... and collect cute little teacups (not neccesarily matching) and maybe a teapot per table, fill the teacups with water and drop in one delicate flower to float in each cup and have that be the favor and the teapot can be given lottery wise (or you can keep them) and have the them be "Love is brewing" or something like that.


This is fun! Do you have a theme, or colors? Time of year/month? I''ve got tons of ideas and I LOVE thinking about this stuff! What kind of wedding )formal/informal/time of day)?

Seriously people -- the fish. DO IT.

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You''ve got some great ideas to work with here, but one thing to think about. I love the look of soft candlelight and wanted to use quite a bit in my reception, but the woman in charge of my reception site mentioned that she had found that using more than two or three candles per table (even if they are tiny votives!) can raise the room temperature several degrees. I didn''t believe it until I went a wedding this spring that was excrutiatingly hot because of all the candles. With your wedding in Hilton Head, you might want to be careful about this (unless your reception is entirely outside, in which case--go for it!).

With a beach wedding there have got to be a lot of non-floral options... If I weren''t an accountant (and hence creativity-challenged), I might be able to help a bit more!
 
I''ve got to start reading posts in full. I''m a skimmer. So, you''re having a beach wedding?!?! There are lots of things you can do for center pieces that would look cute. You could put cute beach buckets (metal ones) or something and fill them with seashells. Or glass containers filled with sand and seashells would look cute too, with a couple of candles around it would look cute too. Someone mentioned the fish bowls, that people can take home with them.

Check this out. http://www.seashells.com/assortseashells.htm They sell seashells in bulk.

And check this out. Mini metal beach buckets. http://www.chicweddingfavors.com/catalog/metal_mini_beach_buckets_3578177.htm

Or here. http://www.bucket-outlet.com/dtpails.htm

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Here''s what we did for centerpieces for our "beach-themed" wedding last summer:

Hurricane vases with white pillar candle, natural colored sand, lt. blue sea glass and starfish and sanddollars. SO much cheaper than flowers (saved $40 per table!) and prettier than I could have imagined!
 
Morticia,

Will you plan my wedding? Golly day, girl... Do you do this for a living?
 
LMAO, Abradabra! I should do this for living right?

I have WAY too much time on my hands with my current job so I look stuff up all the time.
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A message in a bottle

flower petals, rocks, sand or whatever at the bottom

inside a rolled note thanking them for attending this special day (handwritten of course)

that way it''s not so much what it looks like (although can be very pretty) but what it IS
 
You could have silver or white metal pails filled with beach sand, seashells, and sand dollars. You could do it yourself for under $50 or $100 depending on how many you need.
 
Hi, we did minature desserts as our centerpieces for one reception. You can see a pic on the wedding cake thread, about half way down.

https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/post-wedding-cakes.24971/=

We wanted to have desserts in addition to cake, and I didn''t want to spend even more money on centerpieces, so it worked well for us.

Also, I have been to weddings where you have individual cakes that are the centerpieces. You can put them on stands and decorate with a beach theme for your wedding. It may cost a little more than one big cake.
 
Morticia!!!

I love love love the coloured buckets! so cute!!
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I went to a beach-themed wedding where the centerpieces were glass bowls with sand and seashells on the bottom and a couple of floating candles on top. I think they assembled them a couple of days before and gave them to the hotel people, who filled them with water and set them up.
 
Hello!

I wasn''t able to read all the posts (I did skim them over) so I apologize if I am repeating suggestions...

Are the flowers in season? Sometimes the best thing to do is replace out of season flowers with a less expensive alternative. I worked for a short time at a wedding cons. firm and found that this is a great way to save money. Also using a nice green filler works and it is very chic now as well....

In addition, vary the sizes of the flowers for the tables. Some tables could have smaller versions of the original (smaller=cheaper) and this would also help add variety to the room.

I did read the suggestion of candles....This is also a great way to add richness to the room (however, a beach wedding or day wedding could not work with this alternative)...

I personally love flowers and believe there is no alternative (just my opinion, many disagree)....so I maintain my first two suggestions.

The wedding day is your day. You should make sure that you do not feel uncomfortable with anything. If the price quote is bothering you, don''t spend it. There are many ways around the costs.

Best of luck with the day!
 
We bought some 4x6, 5x7, and 8x10 picture frames and put a different engagement photo in each for our centerpieces and guestbook and cake table decorations. We also had the BM bouquets double as centerpieces (4 BMs, 3 tables, 1 guestbook table, my bouquet pre-toss was on the cake table). It was cost-effective ($200 for 5 bouquets, 5 corsages, 11 boutonniers) and elegant. Plus we didn''t have to keep track of our bouquets during the reception. If you''re using flowers for ceremony decorations, you could also use them as centerpieces.
 
Have you thought of blooming plants?

Miniature rose plants in 6" pots are what I''m using, at $5.95 per plant, in painted pots with maybe some tulle or fabric wrapped around them with ribbon. My friend said she had miniature roses in pots as her centerpieces a few years ago and she said they turned out really great. They double as favors, like some of the other girls mentioned. Some other blooming plants that are nice are cyclamen, small hydrangea, or whatever you can find in your floral shop. Granted, these are not "beach themed" but with the right container they could have whatever flair you want.
 
I''m having a small wedding at home, so the scale is certainly different from yours. The florist who is doing the bouquets is selling me stock bundles of peach roses and "greens" and we are simply going to use about a half dozen roses plus the green stuff in round glass vases on each table.
It ought to work.
 
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