Kvetch » Cutting Costs » cheapie centerpieces
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| Re: cheapie centerpieces [message #4808] |
Thu, 19 June 2003 15:35   |
ymouse
Messages: 77
Registered: June 2003
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How do you want to display them? I.e., do you want big bunches of gerbera daisies (flowers I LOVE by the way)? Small bunches? A few flowers per table? The arrangement might really make a difference in the prices.
Just to share an idea, we had a bowl with one or two big oceanic roses & a candle floating in water. Also, some rose petals scattered around the bowl. Definitely, this type of arrangement brought the price down since it involved few flowers and cheap candles.
Also, what's the price range you're looking for? Just to give you a comparison, ours were $20/table. A little more than I wanted, but it was a Mother's Day weekend, which is apparently florists' biggest day of the year. This was the best we could do, given we could hardly get any florists to be interested in us.
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| Re: cheapie centerpieces [message #4809] |
Thu, 19 June 2003 15:36 |
NikkiVI
Messages: 3978
Registered: June 2003
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just do them yourself! We must have saved a bundle by doing them ourselves, cause we didn't want anything fancy - I prefer simple centrepieces. We just bought some beautiful vases at a wholesale florist supply store and ordered the flowers from a Grower Direct here in Canada ourselves. It was WAY cheaper than ordering them, we had more of a choice in terms of the vase, AND we used the vases to give to some people who helped out at the wedding, so they were multifunctional!
Here's a B/W picture where you can see what we ended up with. Simple, but elegant.
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~nrosen/wedding/carrieatdinner. gif
And a colour picture with the centrepieces at each edge of the picture. THey're not great pictures, sorry.
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~nrosen/wedding/headtable.jpg
I think just a mixture of gerberas in a vase by themselves would look great. Just be sure of the eyeline - either they should be short, so people can look over them, or tall, so that they can see across the table under them.
A preposition is a word you should never end a sentence with.
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| Re: cheapie centerpieces [message #4823] |
Thu, 19 June 2003 15:49 |
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Another vote for DIY, especially if you live in an area (like NYC) where good flowers sell for cheap on every street corner. Gather up some vases ahead of time (keeping in mind line-of-sight like Nikki said). Send a few people out shopping the day before or morning of the wedding....they can buy out the gerberas from one or two (or three or four) places...and if you want them a lot of these places pull off the outer petals of roses (because buds look nicer? whatever) and will probably give them to you for free. (If not but you still want rose petals, have your shoppers buy just a few roses, as open as possible. One very-open rose should yield enough petals for two or even three tables, depending on table size.)
If you get very narrow bud vases of different heights, you can cluster them near the center of the table with just one flower in each. If the vases are glass you can space them out a bit more and put votive candles among them (say....5-7 flowers and 3-5 candles per table). That might be getting expensive, though, if you have to buy the vases and candleholders....but if your friends have those sorts of things then you can borrow.
I just realized that I suggested candles with gerbera daises....not exactly the best pairing, looks-wise, now that I think about it. Screw the candles, I guess.
[Updated on: Thu, 19 June 2003 15:49]
My name was (and still is) shanna.
Read my blog. You know you want to.
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| Re: cheapie centerpieces [message #4851] |
Thu, 19 June 2003 16:12 |
 ale
Messages: 8
Registered: June 2003
Location: bay area, ca |
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A friend of mine had a super low budget wedding in October and she used fruits/veggies for her centerpieces, and they turned out really well! For about $40, we got enough fruit to adorn all of the tables (I think there were about 75 people at her wedding, and the tables were set up to create a U-shape).
Since it was a fall wedding, we went with pomegranates (split in half so you could see the cool, red insides), persimmons, pears, baby eggplants, chestnuts, grapes, etc. We just placed them all over the tables (no specific order) as we saw fit.
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| Re: cheapie centerpieces [message #4866] |
Thu, 19 June 2003 16:37 |
ultraviolet
Messages: 146
Registered: June 2003
Location: Chicago, IL |
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remote_girl, if you're not completely set on having flower centerpieces, you also could do something with paper lanterns - i'm ordering the red 12" lanterns from this website and illuminating them with votives, and then surrounding them w/ 3-5 votives on each table: http://www.japaneseweddingfavors.com
i'm getting the votive candles and holders from Ikea, and all together everything should come out to around $120 for 12 tables.
[Updated on: Thu, 19 June 2003 16:38]
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| Re: cheapie centerpieces [message #4943] |
Thu, 19 June 2003 21:37 |
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Like Ale's friend, above, we're having a super low-budget wedding in October, and my FSIL is growing a bunch of gourds and Jack-Be-Little pumpkins for us in her garden. With some nice preserved/colored leaves (like Pier One sells in the fall) scattered on the tables, and a tall white pillar in the middle of a pile of pumpkins, I think it'll be really nice.
The carved pumpkins lining the walkway into the site, well, I don't know if you'll want to borrow that idea from us!
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| Re: cheapie centerpieces [message #5133] |
Fri, 20 June 2003 12:28 |
Beth
Messages: 735
Registered: June 2003
Location: Colorado Springs, CO |
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My MIL did something amazing, gorgeous, and cheap with ribbon and dried flowers from Hobby Lobby. She picked up the tab so I don't know what it cost per table, but it was way the hell less than centerpieces from a florist and it looked superb. I'll post pics when I get them back from the photographer -- hopefully soon!!
"Bother," said the Borg. "We've assimilated Pooh."
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| Re: cheapie centerpieces [message #5271] |
Fri, 20 June 2003 15:14 |
owl
Messages: 1411
Registered: June 2003
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Also, Ikea has votive holders for .50 cents, votive candles for ridiculously cheap, they come in a big bag. I saw votives half-price at Michael's Crafts last week too, for .50 cents each. You could check out a floral supply store for vases; or pick some vases up at Michael's or Joanne's Fabric store too ($3-4 for small vases or bubble bowl style, square ones I don't know about), best if you catch them on sale - again last week Michael's had a half-price sale on most vases.
Also you could do a small mirror (from Michaels, or floral supply store, or Home Depot for a few bucks) and put candles and strewn petals and maybe a bud vase or something on the mirror. More visual bang for the buck. Say a column candle with rose petals around it? With a flower at each place setting in a floral water tube, as favor/decoration? Or I like the floating gerber heads with votives around too. Avoids the wiring of gerber issue - though I can't imagine that'd be too hard, just would make flower more perishable. Only thing I found was that if you want the low wide bowl style for floating flowers, they are rather more expensive than regular vases. You could just use a bubble bowl though. I have some photos of various minimalist centerpieces, want me to post a couple like those that I & others have mentioned?
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| Re: cheapie centerpieces [message #5318] |
Fri, 20 June 2003 16:14 |
mustafa-ette
Messages: 24
Registered: June 2003
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Why didn't this thread exist when we were planning our centerpieces?!
Anyway, we plan to have a 20" eiffel tower-shaped bud vase holding a single stem of asiatic lilies & bear grass, surrounded by 5-6 votive candles in candleholders we decorated.
We bought the vases at Pat Catan's (discount craft store, the best place ever  ) for $3.95--less than rental! I've seen the same online for $16. The votive holders are plain clear glass, 5/$1.00 at Pat Catan's, that we are wrapping in dark green handmade-looking paper & tying with a bit of raffia. The paper is about $3.00; the raffia is faux raffia & thus fairly cheap. I bought the candles at oriental.com at $3.95 for 2 dozen. It will end up around $11/table.
Meredith, our tables sit 10 people, and they're freakin' huge. I had to choose a tall vase (thin so people can see around it) with several candles because a short or simple centerpiece would look stupid. I'm still wondering if filler, like ferns, is necessary under the vase & candles. So I would suggest the smaller tables! You can do smaller centerpieces, which I'd prefer to our big-on-a-budget ones.
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| Re: cheapie centerpieces [message #5605] |
Sun, 22 June 2003 16:41 |
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i lucked out! i found a florist who is cutting me a great deal and we are making the table nubers and providing the votives....whew! thanks so much for all of the great ideas!
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| Re: cheapie centerpieces [message #7704] |
Mon, 30 June 2003 09:45 |
chatnoire
Messages: 2287
Registered: June 2003
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I scored a *fabulous* cheap centerpiece this weekend....
Since we're getting married n October in a mountain mining town, we were thinking of using lanterns on the table, but I wasn't compleely set on the idea...well, the lanterns were $7 a pop, adn they were at walmart...I'd prefer *not* to shop there.
So, we wandered over to the Pier 1 clearance center, and BINGO! I found these cut metal candleholders, big enough for a 3X3 pillar. THey're brown metal (goes with our colors) with oak leaves (fall) cut out of the sides, and they were originally $8 a piece. I got them for..........
...........$1 each!
21 candle holders for $21.65!!
*doing interpretive dance of joy and savings*
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| Re: cheapie centerpieces [message #7904] |
Mon, 30 June 2003 17:32 |
lilly
Messages: 35
Registered: June 2003
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gerbera daisies are kind of trendy now- that could be why they are expensive. How about regular daisies? they are smaller, but right now there are huge amounts growing at the side of the road and all over the place, in the northeast, anyway. Could you put them in red (or blue, or whatever) water and have them turn that color? or does that only work with queen ann's lace?
We are doing potted plants for our centerpeices- lilies of the valley and different colors of mini rose plants. I'm getting mine from a floral discount store for 4.00 each, but you can find some at the supermarket too. We are re-potting them in nicer pots, tying them with a satin ribon, placing them on round mirrors (we have a bunch from a thrift store- we took them out of their frames and hot-glued a satin ribbon on the edge instead) and putting tea lights all around the mirror. At every place there will be one long stemmed lily- in a little vase or maybe on the plate. (These lilies will be taken from the church, where they will have been in small bouquets at the front, and hanging cones from each pew.) The tables will be covered in tulle over the tablecloths- tulle is 50 cents a yard. I fixed my kitchen table to look like the reception table, and it looks really cool.
For other decor, I'm having the bouquets- mine and the bridesmiads- put in vases on a wide railing by the dance floor. If you don't have many tables, you can do that for your centerpeices.
good luck!
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| Re: cheapie centerpieces [message #8129] |
Tue, 01 July 2003 12:17 |
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chatnoire,
that is so great that you made such a score at pier one! we also have an october date and i had eyed those same candleholders quite a while back. maybe i'll have to check it out at the store. we decided to do our own with a mish-mash of small glass cylinder vases (or juice glasses) wide enough to fit a 3x3 pillar. we fill the cylinder with multicolor (yellow, dark red, etc.) popcorn kernals and top them with an ivory pillar. tie some raffia around. my mom is working on tea-staining some fabric circles to lay beneath as an accent. maybe some leaves around, too.
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| Re: cheapie centerpieces [message #10913] |
Thu, 10 July 2003 13:37 |
mathilde
Messages: 1640
Registered: June 2003
Location: NYC |
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just to add my 2 cents cause I would have loved to have seen this thread before my wedding...
I had a daisy theme--the regular white and yellow ones--and I had limited funds for flowers. I had in my head I wanted squares of grass with little daisies 'planted' in them and was going to hire a friend to do it for me, but ended up finding a BRILLIANT florist in NYC to do them for me for $40/centerpiece (which may sound expensive but believe me in NYC this is rock bottom). They were so cool--the florist got squares of wheatgrass from the flower district and planted (each with little capsules of water around the stems, invisible) into the wheatgrass so that they looked wild, and architectural! You could probably pull this off for $15 each or less.
Also, about candles, go to a restaurant supply store (in NYC they are on the Bowery). I got 200 candles and holders (nice ones) for a total of $190.
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| Re: cheapie centerpieces [message #12452] |
Wed, 16 July 2003 01:15 |
joanna
Messages: 186
Registered: June 2003
Location: Bay Area, CA, USA |
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We did blue/green blue/lavender ceramic pots ($3 each from IKEA) with live lavender plants in them ($4 each minus a 10% discount for buying in bulk) with florist's moss around the top to hide the pot ($5 per bag; we used two bags and it was more than enough for 22 pots). It worked out to $155 for all the centerpieces....
I originally planned on having only one pot of lavender per table, but decided to use three, with a few extra for the buffet. Which gave us 22 lavender plants. And we have this new house that needs landscaping, so I get to have my wedding flowers with me forever, along the walk up to my front door. I hated the thought of spending a bunch of money on flowers for the tables and then watching them all die.
I did lose two plants to fungus last week, and I gave two to the photographer, but 18 plants is actually more than enough to cover all the space I have, so I was not heartbroken. And they looked great and even smelled good.
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| Re: cheapie centerpieces [message #13850] |
Sun, 20 July 2003 11:01 |
chatnoire
Messages: 2287
Registered: June 2003
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*sigh* Joanna, that sounds heavenly, I love lavendar.
My biggest regret about my wedding site is that I can't walk up along a path of lavendar (not supposed to have anything left behind.)
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| Re: cheapie centerpieces [message #23208] |
Wed, 20 August 2003 23:04 |
The Flower Press Girl
Messages: 4
Registered: August 2003
Location: St. Paul, MN |
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How about this idea...instead of throwing away those free AOL disks you get in the mail, use them instead! Just imagine how pretty a table would look if you put votive candles or bud vases with a fantastic bloom on each disk and mass them on each table. If you don't get enough of those disks free in the mail, you might want to check out your local used CD store. I bet they throw away a lot of scratched ones...just ask them if they could save them for you in a box, which you could pick up weekly.
Amanda
~The Flower Press Girl~
************************************************
Creative design services...theflowerpress@yahoo.com
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 Re: cheapie centerpieces [message #23720] |
Fri, 22 August 2003 10:47 |
sundaysilence
Messages: 397
Registered: August 2003
Location: Boston, MA |
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I am all for cheapie centerpieces. My friend had a wedding and the reception outside at her friends house, the centerpieces were replantable baskets of Nasturtiums, simple, natural,yet they were the Jewel Mix with lots of different colors, and very much like the bride's style!
My cousin's wedding was DIY centerpieces and they were SO much fun to make, my uncle and aunt are very creative of course so they had the vision and had all of us wrapping roses in floral paper!
Their wedding was in December a couple of weeks before Christmas. One fun thing they did, was get ivory satin bead-edged ribbon at a craft shop and some of the long tables we ran the ribbon down and made it sort of wavy, and placed pine boughs, sprigs of boxwood, and ivory roses and red carnations. Then we interspersed gold and ivory onion-shaped glass Christmas ornaments, which the guests took home. The real genius of this was that my cousin's wife is Russian, and the glass globes were kind of like the church spires they have there, it was so lovely!
With Gerbera daisies you could trim them short and get a bunch of clear glass globes at a craft store or floral supply, with multicolors, they would be simple and fun. I kind of like that so the flowers stand out but you could also tint the water or put some sort of fun charm or gift in the water too...
[Updated on: Fri, 22 August 2003 10:50]
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| Re: cheapie centerpieces [message #29246] |
Thu, 11 September 2003 15:29 |
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Go to Michael's craft store, if you have one in your area. They also have a Web site with lots of great centerpiece ideas. That's where I got the idea for ours. Go to: http://www.michaels.com/art/online/static?page=wedding
I bought silver mint julep cups and put two (fake) roses in each one and then put votive candles around them (6 for each table that had words like love, marriage, etc. etched into them - very inexpensive at Michael's) and sprinkled around (fake) rose petals. The caterers found a bag of wedding conversation hearts that I had used for favors and sprinkled those around as well. That wasn't my intention, but it still turned out well. I know some people don't like the idea of fake flowers, but it was so much easier and I was able to put them together weeks before the wedding.
J
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| Re: cheapie centerpieces [message #29614] |
Sat, 13 September 2003 00:43 |
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I was thinking of buying cheap terra cotta pots, and planting the seeds of fragrant herbs and plants such as lavendar, thyme, etc. It would be cheaper than buying grown plants, but more labor intensive.
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| Re: cheapie centerpieces [message #39702] |
Tue, 04 November 2003 14:56 |
Yaz from Stumptown
Messages: 3122
Registered: July 2003
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Wow! Great pics, merricontrary! The green peas look awesome with the bright daisies.
Do you have any equally fabulous pics for candles or candle based centerpieces?
Thanks ~ Yaz
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| Re: cheapie centerpieces [message #39812] |
Tue, 04 November 2003 18:54 |
Yaz from Stumptown
Messages: 3122
Registered: July 2003
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merricontrary, your lovely pics have made me all twitterpated! Thanks!
My mom is doing the flowers and I'm doing the candles... we could combine them... who knew?
Thanks for the inspiration!
~ Yaz
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| Re: cheapie centerpieces [message #45901] |
Mon, 24 November 2003 22:04 |
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I want to have paper lanterns too. But the only ones I've seen are suspended from above. How do you get them to rest on the table? Also, how do you keep them from catching fire if you put a candle inside?
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