Rustic-Elegant Winter Wedding Centerpieces

My youngest sister got engaged in October and asked if I'd like to put together the centerpieces for their December wedding receptions, one to be held in a community dance hall with a live band and the other, a more formal setting, in a church hall.  Of course I was thrilled that she asked me!

The goal was to put together a centerpiece that would work for both receptions, was Winter-y (yet warm), rustic (for the groom) yet elegant (for the bride), and coordinated with the wedding colors which were blue, white, silver, and brown.

(I gathered several inspiration pictures for the centerpieces, but my favorite, and the one that I followed the most closely, was a beautiful Christmas Tablescape at Beechtree Photography.) 

I mixed old and new items to keep the cost of each Centerpiece under $20. 

I would have liked to use real candles in the centerpieces but open flames were not allowed in either of the reception locations so battery operated candles were used instead.  Each centerpiece had two 3 1/2" tall candles (purchased at Dollar tree for $1 each) and one 6" tall candle (purchased at a local craft store on clearance for $4 each).

The silver berries came on a garland with ten sprigs each.  I bought them at JoAnn's (40% off) for $3.99.

The freshly cut evergreens came from the shrubs in my parents yard.  My dad pruned more clippings than I needed so I'd have plenty to choose from.  I used handheld pruners to cut them to the sizes that I needed at the time I put the centerpieces together.  It doesn't sound very glamorous that they were shrubs, but it was convenient and they didn't cost a penny.

I've talked about my Grandma's cute little pine cones before, I used some of the pine cones that I gathered from her yard.   We also used several larger branch clippings from her trees to set around the frames on the photo table.

One bunch of flowers ($6) was enough for all eleven centerpieces.  

The 16" silver tray on the bottom left is a lightweight plastic serving tray from Dollar Tree and the 12" plastic platter on the right was .99 at Wal-mart.  I was a little nervous to use them because I was worried that they would look cheap.  I actually considered using silver metal pizza pans (which surprisingly looked quite nice) but in the end opted to just save the money.  Once the plastic trays were filled with the logs, evergreens, and flowers I think they worked out just fine.

I put together eight centerpieces for the tables and three centerpieces with larger vases (pictured top right) that were placed on the serving table and a photo table.  I was so happy to have found the three vases (that were all exactly the same) during one of my thrift store visits.  It was a rare and fabulous find for sure!   I paid $1.50-2.00 for each of them, a great buy.  

Most of the vases were purchased at thrift stores, ranging in price from .50 to $2.50.  Eight of them were new from Wal-mart, four large ($4) and four small ($3), twenty-seven in total.

Before the first reception I washed and dried each vase, sorted them into groups (short, medium, and tall), and gave each of them a table number and a letter (ex. 1a, 1b, and 1c).  Each log was cut for a specific vase so the heights of the centerpieces on each table would all be fairly close to the same.  I labeled the logs with the corresponding number of the vase and then put each set of logs in a grocery sack for an easy set-up.  On the day of the reception we simply matched the numbers together.  I also cut the berries apart ahead of time and placed the batteries in the candles to make sure they all worked.

The picture above was taken at the end of the reception when we were cleaning up.  It's not a great picture, but you can see in it how the logs and vases were labeled.

The candles all needed to be turned on and placed in the vases right before the reception so I had helpers with this.  I didn't notice until now, while writing this post, that the large candle was in the wrong vase on one of the tables.  Of course it's the table that I took the most pictures of.  It's funny that I never noticed it before now when I can't do a thing about it.  :)

Cost Summary

Each full table centerpiece ranged in price from @ $15-$17.  The single vase centerpieces cost @$7 each to put together.

Vases: .50 to $4.00 each
Candles: $1 for the small, batteries included, at Dollar Tree; $4 for the large at a local craft store that was closing (I used dollar store batteries for the large candles, they worked great for both receptions.)
Epsom Salt (Snow): .88 each (1 carton per table) at Wal-mart
Logs:  Donated and cut by my dad
Silver Berry Garland:  $4 (on sale for 40% off) at JoAnn Fabrics
Silver Serving Trays: $1 at Dollar Tree and Wal-Mart
Small Pine Cones: Free from my Grandma's Trees
Greenery:  Free from my Parents Yard
Flowers:  One large bunch for $6 (check your grocery store)
Ribbon:  .88 for a 3 yd. Spool from Wal-mart

The centerpieces ended up being just what we'd hoped for with their rustic natural pine cones and  logs, elegant glass vases, warm flickering candles, soft sweet smelling flowers, freshly cut evergreens, shiny silver ribbons and tray, and sparkling white (Epsom salt) 'snow'.  And...as you can imagine they smelled wonderful too!

Thanks for stopping by, enjoy your long weekend!

Today's Fabulous Find...Rustic-Elegant Winter Centerpiece for Under $20

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Wheat Grass Centerpieces (Grown on Paper Towels)

Do you remember that I told you I was growing wheat grass for centerpieces to use at a dinner for the ladies at my church?  (We celebrate the organization of The Relief Society every March.)  My living room table was completely covered with grass for 11 days!  It was pretty much like having a small lawn in the living room!

The flowers are from the dollar store ($6 total).  Real flowers would have been wonderful, but didn't fit in our budget.  I'll tell you more about the small boxes in another post.  The grass in this picture was grown in soil.

The grass pictured below was grown on nothing more than 4 layers of wet paper towels. Pretty amazing right?   I learned how to grow it at K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Sister).  She also put together some very pretty centerpieces with wheat grass and tea cups.

Originally I was planning on putting it on a piece of Styrofoam and putting our fruit kabobs in it, but that didn't pan out, so we (me and two other friends on the committee) changed plans last minute and came up with a couple of alternative ideas.

Our first idea was to fill a plant stand with grass to hold a card with our theme for the night.  I used my trusty pair of cheapo scissors and cut through the grass roots, using a paper plate as my guide.  We cut the plate down to the right size and then flipped it over so the grass would curve the right direction (otherwise it just bunches together in the center).

The next idea was to use the leftover grass and put it in glass dishes.  We used an upside down dessert plate with an upside down paper plate on top of it (trimmed to fit) to hold it up in the dish.  The scrap pieces of grass were used to fill in the edges as needed and then we finished it off with a strip of burlap. (Please ignore the condition of the cookie sheet.  I use it for crafts, etc. and haven't baked anything on it in years--promise!)

It's hard to believe that we made all three displays from just one small cookie sheet of grass!  It worked out perfectly!

We displayed a few fruit kabobs in cups that were filled with dirt (to hold the weight of the skewer) for presentation.  I found the idea to display the fruit kabobs in grass here.

There is much more that I want to show you, but I'll save it for another post.  Here's a little peek though at how everything came together.

I can't wait to show you the rest!  You can link to my tutorial on how to grow wheat grass and build the planter boxes here.

Today's Fabulous Find...Growing Wheat Grass on a Paper Towel