Modern Wedding Centerpieces

Are you looking for a way to set your wedding apart from all the rest? Then try using fresh and unique design elements for your reception decorations. These are some great ideas for modern wedding centerpieces that are sure to make your wedding look amazing.

When you are looking for an update on the standard vase of flowers, the key is to think creatively. Your flowers do not have to be displayed in a plain glass vase; for that matter, you don’t even have to use flowers as your central decoration. There are so many fun alternatives to consider. To avoid becoming overwhelmed by options, think about what the general tone of your wedding will be like, and then build from there. For instance, if you were planning to host your reception in a grand ballroom, while wearing an elaborate ballgown and opulent bridal jewelry, you would want to design modern centerpieces that are equally luxurious and glamorous.

One of the hottest trends for wedding décor is to bring in lighting. This can be a terrific idea for fresh and modern centerpieces. Instead of floral arrangements, set up lamps on the reception tables (an especially great look on long rectangular tables). Use chic lamps with a touch of 1930s glam: heavy rectangular crystal bases with square silk dupioni lampshades in an ice blue or a deep espresso color.

Another modern approach to wedding centerpieces is a mixture of items, rather than one main display. You can really have a lot of fun arranging groupings that are slightly varied from one table to the next. Incorporate elements that have visual interest and contrasting textures or colors. For instance, one idea would be to take an assortment of clear glass square vessels and fill them with items such as smooth river rocks, floating lotus blossoms, and simple ivory pillar candles.  The original modern centerpieces will be sure to make your reception look incredible.

Centerpieces for Halloween Weddings

If your wedding is taking place on Halloween, the big day is right around the corner! Along with the usual decorations, you will surely want to have spectacular centerpieces that fit with the theme of your wedding. From the classic to the unexpected, these are some great ideas for Halloween wedding centerpieces.

The most classic way to design a Halloween wedding is to really take the theme of the holiday and run with it. This might mean the bride in a non-traditional red or black dress with custom bridal jewelry, rather than the traditional white gown and demure accessories. If this sounds like your style, then personalized jack o’lanterns would be ideal for your centerpieces. This is no time for the basic face on a pumpkin, however; your wedding decorations call for something intricate and spectacular. Carve each pumpkin with a different spooky scene, such as a graveyard, complete with the initials of the newlyweds on one of the tombstones!

Another idea for jack o’lantern centerpieces is to use three smallish pumpkins and place them on a tiered stand, like the sort typically used for pies. Designs to consider would be the newlyweds’ monogram, Halloween motifs such as black cats and monsters, or even the faces of the bride and groom, if you have a talented enough pumpkin carver (rendering an accurate likeness is actually not as hard as it sounds). At the base of the three tiered stand, place clusters of fall flowers like mums and asters for more color.

Tall black candelabras with dark red taper candles would look magnificent on the dinner tables for a Halloween wedding. Dark red roses like Black Magic or flowers in a deep purple would be the perfect complement to the black candelabras. You can have the flowers dripping off of the candelabras or surrounding them in vases with a Gothic flair. Either way, the results will be impressive. You can be sure that your wedding will be one that no one will ever forget!

Textural Dried Natural Elements for Wedding Flowers

When you are designing your wedding flowers, the first thing that probably comes to mind is fresh blossoms. It is true that fresh colors are wonderful, but they are not the only thing that can be used to create interesting and beautiful centerpieces and bridal bouquets. A fantastic way to add texture and visual interest to your wedding flowers is to incorporate dried natural elements.

There is an abundance of different dried elements that can be worked into wedding arrangements. Any florist will certainly be able to access a wide variety of dried seed pods, vines, branches, and more, but will the bride who wants to make her own centerpieces and bouquets. These items are widely available at craft stores and on the internet, along with the instructional materials to show you exactly how to work with them. This is great, because it can allow you to design floral arrangements for your wedding that are one-of-a-kind pieces, whether you work with a professional or make them yourself.

More and more brides are finding the appeal of wedding details which have been handmade, whether it is their gown and jewelry, the invitations, or their bouquets. And yet, it can be intimidating to think about making your own wedding bouquets, so many brides who attempt it will end up creating very basic arrangements. However, dried natural elements are so easy to use that almost any bride can learn to incorporate them into her bouquet. For autumn, you could make a wonderful bouquet using mums in shades of russet and orange, combined with dried preserved mini-sunflowers and stalks of natural wheat. So simple, yet so pretty and autumnal.

There are also dramatic dried lotus pods, pine cones, dried rose petals, and all sorts of other natural elements just waiting to be included in your wedding. These interesting dried pieces give your wedding centerpieces and bouquets a wonderful natural earthy quality with fantastic visual appeal.

Easy Centerpieces for Every Season

Your wedding centerpieces will be one of the most important parts of your wedding décor, so naturally you want them to be fabulous. But fabulous does not have to mean expensive; in fact some of the most beautiful centerpieces are so easy that you can make them yourself. Here are some great ideas for easy wedding centerpieces for every season.

Spring lends itself to all sorts of lovely centerpieces. There are many wonderful fresh flowers that characterize the season of growth and new life. Bulbs, in particular, capture the beauty of the spring. One idea for wedding centerpieces is to create low table arrangements using potted flowering bulbs like mini daffodils or fragrant hyacinths. Gather a collection of shallow and wide painted bowls, such as those with a classic blue and white design. Transfer several of the bulbs and dirt into the bowls, and cover the top with dried Spanish moss. The centerpieces will be so beautiful that your guests will all want to take them home!

Beach themes are popular for summertime weddings, and they lend themselves beautifully to easy and affordable centerpieces. You can create the perfect summer wedding decorations using sand, seashells, and starfish. Fill a clear cylinder about a third full with sand and plant a tall chunky white candle in the sand. Set the vase into a bed of sand on the table, and carefully arrange an assortment of your favorite shells and starfish stacked up against the outside of the cylinder. For a dash of color, layer in bright red faux coral.

In the fall, there are countless ideas for easy diy wedding reception displays. One of the most charming is to hollow out mini pumpkins, eggplants, and gourds to use as centerpiece vessels instead of standard vases. Cluster three or more of these mini vases on each table and fill with mums, berries, and other seasonal flowers.

Winter brides will also have some fantastic options for easy to assemble centerpieces. One of the simplest is to fill a large footed glass hurricane lantern with round Christmas ornaments. Spread some evergreen boughs around the base of the lantern and light the room with tiny white votive candles. If you are the sort of bride who loves the sparkle of crystal bridal jewelry for a Winter Wonderland theme wedding, you can incorporate that feeling into your handcrafted centerpieces. Make your own table displays by planting silver painted branches into a pretty vessel. Drape crystal and pearl strands across the branches to coordinate with your bridal jewelry. As a finishing touch, place battery powered LED lights into the base of the centerpiece to cast dramatic uplighting on the branches and make the crystals really dance and sparkle. Gorgeous!

What to Do with Your Centerpieces After the Reception

You spend a lot of time and money planning the perfect centerpieces for your wedding. Your guests will enjoy them for the duration of the event, but then what? These are some great ideas on things that you can do with your centerpieces after the reception.

One of the nicest things that you can do is to donate your flowers to a place where they can really brighten someone’s day. These places include hospitals, nursing homes, and senior centers. Many couples especially like to take their centerpieces to places that have special meaning to their family, such as a retirement home where a grandparent lives or a hospital that once helped an ill family member. Elderly patients in nursing homes will enjoy hearing about a wedding almost as much as the cheerful flowers themselves; it would be very special if you included a few snapshots of the bride in her pretty gown and bridal jewelry with a brief note about the wedding.

Potted plants are affordable and beautiful centerpieces. They can also be wonderful because they will live on well after your wedding. The best idea is to choose a plant that will thrive when planted in your region. What many couples will do is to “raffle” off the centerpieces towards the end of the reception. Place a number on the bottom of the basket and have a corresponding number on the bottom of one of the coffee cups at the place settings on the table. The bandleader makes an announcement for each guest to turn over their cup, and whoever has the matching number gets to take home the centerpiece on their table.

Silk flowers are something that some brides choose for their wedding decorations instead of live plants. These days other non-floral items are also very popular for centerpieces, such as river rocks, painted tree branches, and so on. If you will be using any of these non-perishable elements for your wedding, rather than discarding them or letting them pile up in your garage after the wedding, sell them off on ebay or Craig’s list. It is a great way to recycle and to recover some of your wedding costs while also helping the next bride to plan her own beautiful wedding.

Floating Candle Centerpieces

There are an incredible variety of floating candle centerpieces that you can create. One of the best part about them is that they require no previous experience, unlike floral displays. These centerpieces are a great option for any bride who wants to save money by making her own centerpieces. The fact that floating candles are also beautiful and romantic makes it even better.

Shaped candles are one really neat option, and they are very easy to tie in with your wedding theme. For instance, if you are having a summer wedding in a meadow, floating candles that look like slices of citrus fruit are fresh and pretty. Candles that are shaped like flowers are perfect for a romantic or garden themed wedding, and they are incredibly life-like and come in a huge array of designs. Other popular shapes include hearts, butterflies, and seashells. Simple vessels with wide openings are best for displaying floating candles in special shapes.

For a very elegant or formal wedding, floating candles can be arranged in taller vessels that employ some interesting accessories. For instance, a bride who loves sparkle can add a layer of faux crystals to the bottom of each bowl. It is a beautiful complement to crystal wedding jewelry. If you want even more dramatic centerpieces, think about filling the water with shredded crystal fibers that are colored with submersible lights. This colorful lights create a wonderful glow, and the shimmer of the crystal fibers looks as beautiful as the most dazzling wedding jewelry.

Floating candles can also be used to design centerpieces for earthy weddings. Simply choose vessels like handthrown glazed ceramic pots to hold your candles. White or ivory candles will have a peaceful Zen effect when floating in clusters in shallow bowls with a layer of smooth river rocks under the water. A centerpiece of this style looks great on its own, or used in combination with floral displays.

The perfect centerpiece will help to create a wonderful ambiance for your wedding reception. Floating candles can make fantastic centerpieces that are interesting, romantic, and easy to create. For all of these reasons, you might just find that floating candles will make the ideal centerpieces for your wedding.

Lovely Yellow Wedding Flowers

In all of the hoopla over what wedding colors are super-trendy or the most daring, sometimes the pretty classics can be forgotten. Yellow is one of the sweetest color choices for wedding flowers, and it is available in virtually any type of blossom that you could ever desire. These are some ideas for the loveliest yellow wedding bouquets and centerpieces.

Your bridal bouquet is really like another accessory, just like your veil or pearl jewelry. The style of the bouquet should complement the design of your gown, as well as the theme of your wedding. With yellow as your color of choice, you will have flower options that can be sweet, romantic, cheerful, bright, romantic, tropical, modern, or old-fashioned. In other words, there are yellow flowers that would be perfect for any style of wedding.

The cheery nature of yellow makes it wonderful for a spring wedding. Some of the most beautiful spring blossoms are available in shades of yellow ranging from the palest cream to the most vibrant yellow. Choices include bridal classics like tulips and roses, as well as springtime favorites such as daffodils, crocus, and forsythia. These yellow beauties are ideal for designing bouquets that are traditional and sunny, as well as for centerpieces with a bit more height and drama (as when you mix in branches of forsythia).

Yellow centerpieces and bouquets can look especially cheery and lighthearted when they are created from shades of yellow accented with crisp white and fresh spring green. There is nothing more happy than a simple bouquet of yellow and white daisies tied with a green and white gingham ribbon. For a more modern edge, go with gerbera daisies in a bolder shade of yellow. Either style of daisy works wonderfully when arranged in a simple clear glass vase for centerpieces. To make your centerpieces more nostalgic, you can use white pitchers and fill them with the classic white and yellow daisies.

Vivid Centerpieces for Summer Weddings

Of course, when you are designing centerpieces for your reception, the place to begin is with the flowers. Don’t be afraid to combine a variety of bold colors. Think about how cheerful it would be to have simple centerpieces created from hot pink, orange, red, and yellow gerbera daisies. They could be arranged in basic clear glass vases, or even set into painted tin buckets for informal beach weddings.

Vivid does not have to mean casual. If your wedding is on the formal side, there are still some amazing effects that you can create for your centerpieces. Brides who are wearing crystal bridal jewelry will love the look of bright red Swarovski crystals filling the bottoms of the vases. They can be topped with bouquets of vibrant red and hot pink roses for centerpieces that will dazzle your guests.

Tropical flowers are terrific for summer, and they also come in the most amazing colors. One of the most versatile and hardy options are orchids. These exotic flowers look extremely elegant, and yet can be used in almost any setting. Best of all, they come in an endless array of vibrant colors, including varieties that are striped or dotted. Orchids can be used to design bright and bold centerpieces that run the gamut from modern to opulent.

You can also make your centerpieces more vivid by pairing colors that pop against one another. Try magenta and lime green or bright purple with safety orange. Unexpected color combinations also have the bonus of adding personality to your reception décor. Summer is the perfect time to explore some wild color choices.

Have fun when you are planning your wedding centerpieces. The summer months lend themselves to wedding decorations that are exuberant and bright. Vivid centerpieces are the perfect place to begin when you want to add some pizzazz to your wedding reception.

Preppy Wedding Centerpieces

When you think of preppy style, the first thing that comes to mind is pink and green. This is definitely an excellent option for the colors of your centerpieces. The pink and green can be the foundation of your flower choices, or you can use it for the vessels. Or maybe even both!

There are many wonderful flowers available in shades of pink and green. Probably the preppiest combination would be green hydrangeas with pink peonies or garden roses. Another excellent option is pink ranunculus, which can even be found with a greenish center. For a more elaborate centerpiece, ask your florist about wiring a pearl into the center of some of the flowers to coordinate with your bridal jewelry.

Clever ideas for pink and green centerpiece vessels abound. You could do something as simple as tying a striped grosgrain ribbon around a cylindrical vase for an instant dash of preppy flair. For a more elegant wedding, seek out vases with a pink and green toile print (sometimes you find this design done on a galvanized bucket, which is an incredible combination of fancy and laid-back). Another idea would be to alternate pink vases and green vases filled to the brim with white flowers like roses or sweetpeas.

Certainly, every preppy woman adores the iconic look of the silver mint julep cup, and this would make a wonderful addition to a wedding centerpiece. Instead of having one large centerpiece, place a mint julep cup at each place setting filled with wide open garden roses or peonies in shades of pink and white. To fill the middle of the table, think about a hurricane lantern with a large ivory pillar candle, or even a tiered stand of desserts.

Or for an all-out preppy look, paint simple containers in diagonal Kelly green and navy stripes to look like a classic mens’ tie. It would be a fresh and interesting addition to any preppy wedding, and would be a great way to showcase your style.

How to Pick the Perfect Centerpieces

Once upon a time, weddings were fairly similar. Most people had them in the same few types of venues, with similar menus, and white flowers on the tables. These days, couples are fortunate to have a whole world of choices available to help them create their dream wedding. The only problem is that with so many options, it can be hard to narrow down your choices. Here are some tips on how to pick the perfect centerpieces for the type of wedding you will be having.

When it comes to wedding centerpieces, there are truly a dizzying array of choices. Some of the main categories include: identical or eclectic, formal or informal, classic or modern, high or low, and even flowers, fruits, or other natural materials. The key to sorting through all of this information is to figure out which basic categories will fit your needs. From there, you can ask your florist to show you only the centerpieces that will be right for your wedding.

The vessels for your centerpieces will also have a major impact. Formal weddings call for centerpieces to be placed in tall silver vases or beautiful white vases. A casual wedding can use a much broader array of containers; anything from wicker baskets to mis-matched pitchers to simple glass cylinders could work. The vessels that you choose are also an excellent place to introduce the high-low concept and to show off a more modern or a more traditional style.

Once you have made your basic choices, it will be much easier to sort through all of the fantastic centerpiece ideas that are out there. Peruse the internet, and bring some samples to your florist to give her a visual guideline. When you and your florist are on the same page, you will be well on your way towards designing the centerpieces of your dreams.