Feeling Centered

Over the last few months, and with an increasing intensity over the last few days, I have become consumed with the need to spruce up our centerpieces.  When we originally saw the wrought iron with crystal embellishment candle holders (hard to explain and I can't get my picture off my phone!) I thought they were absolutely lovely.  Now I look at them and feel that there's *something* missing.  The problem is, I can't figure out what that something is.

The height overall, is decent - not so high you can't see your table mates, not so low they don't have impact.  They go with the overall feel of the venue, but there's some warmth or something that is missing.

This led to a flurry of research *echem* watching bridal shows *echem* which left me even more confused.

If I could have my dream centerpieces, and money was no object, my table would look something like this:

But we have neither the space nor budget for that much decoration.  Or that many flowers.  So, here are some of the other ideas I toyed with:

Submerged Flowers

Maybe with Colored Water???

There is something so lovely about seeing the flowers this way.  Magical and romantic, but maybe too modern for out venue?  And would this work with the wrought iron? There seemed a few too many issues with this idea, so I continued my search.

Candles:

There are actually some truly amazing things that you can do with candles as your centerpiece focus.  I tried to find images where the candles were costars, so to speak.  I love how candlelight adds the romance and easily ties into a vintage feel.  I looked toward the 3rd picture with the mirror bouncing the light back up as good idea of how I could incorporate different size candles with the candelabra thing (maybe it would go where the hydrangeas are), but then I realized It's just all candles, there's no color.  And thats when I got a bit more focused in what I want.  I would love to say it's the first picture in the candle set that set me on track, but it's really what I came across when looking up "Aquarium Gravel."

Yes, this is an odd thing to search when looking for centerpiece inspiration.  However, we recently decided that violet aquarium gravel was the perfect accent piece to another wedding project (more on that to come!) and I thought maybe it could add color sprinkled on the bottom of the candle holder, or on a glass piece like above, or maybe in a vase with water and floating candles.  I was in no way prepared for what I stumbled across.

Mason Jars

It was love at first sight.  Somehow, despite seeing these sorts of arrangements all over the intranet I never thought about this for my own reception.  I'm not sure if I wrote this look off because I had it filed under "shabby chic" in my head and I consider my wedding "vintage romance" or if it was simply because I stopped envisioning flowers playing a major role in our wedding when I picked our venue. For whatever the reason, I didn't see how this could work... until it stole my breath.

The venue would provide us with 2 of the candle holders per circle table, and 3-4 for the rectangle tables.  If I used different size mason jars, and maybe a votive/tealight or two, I could have the varying heights, and add warmth and color to the tables.

There was one other element that really cinched this idea for me.  The vintage handkerchief in that first picture in this grouping.  I had been wanting to find a way to incorporate these, after seeing all the lovely tears of joy and save the dates that had been made with these.  It just wasn't quite the feel we were going for, however, there is something so feminine and lovely about the hankie it never completely left my mind.  If I use is as the base of my arrangement, and then alternate with different combinations of the mason jar arrangements and candleholders, I will have a real cohesive look that still matches the feel of the venue and period, but is a little softer, a little more romantic, and much more me!

The best part is the jars are relatively inexpensive, and with only 3-4 flowers per jar, I wouldn't have to spend an arm and a leg on them.  Candles are easy to buy in bulk, and the hankies could become the centerpiece item guests take home (do people still do that? I remember this from the weddings I went to as a child).  We will have black faux-antique frames that will have the table names in them as well.  I don't think we would need to worry about anything else, but we could always do some petals or maybe even aquarium gravel (haha!) lightly around the bottom just to finish it off.

So what do you think?  Did I find the most perfect centerpiece inspiration or what?