Wedding Wednesday: Coastal Cool Centerpieces

I really wanted to avoid creating oodles of unnecessary trash with our wedding.  I was also trying to keep costs under control.  So while I love beautiful floral centerpieces, they get tossed within a week of the wedding and they aren't cheap!

I went back and forth with lots of ideas, but when I saw these large white lanterns at Ikea, I was sold!  They were a bargain at $14 each, could be reused or sold after the wedding, and would complement our venue nicely.  Because the venue was on a waterway with a lighthouse out front, the nautical look of lanterns was perfect!

Ikea only had 13 available before they quit carrying them.  I was planning on 20 tables, so Plan B!  I found smaller white lanterns online that had similar cutouts, so I got those for the smaller tables.

After our wedding, our friends used the lanterns as centerpieces for their beach wedding.  I used them again around the house at Christmas, and hope to put a few on our deck once it warms up again.

I had nightmares before the wedding that my dress would somehow catch on fire (maybe after melting my dress fabric scraps to make the ring pillow?).  Between that and my theme of reusability, I went with flameless, battery-operated candles to go inside the lanterns.  Those babies can be pricey!!!  A recently-married friend graciously gave me the ones from her wedding, and I got the rest for $3 each at Christmas Tree Shops (thanks Sarah!).  Now they're all over our house, providing a soft (and safe!) glow.

I added a chrome coral to hold the table "numbers".  I talked about the DIY for those last year.  After the wedding, I sold them on Etsy for a profit.  The table names were streets in Charleston.

To give the wedding a sort of beachy vibe, I completed the look with sprinkling of chromed seashells.  My Aunt Cathy collected them from the beach on Grand Isle Louisiana where she lives, and spray painted them chrome for me (thanks Aunt Cathy!!!).  I have big plans to use them in our house eventually.

For about $20, I got cost-concious, reusable/resellable centerpieces.  I love how they turned out, and I'm super happy that everything is getting used again!

I think they looked really nice altogether, and pulled off the casual, coastal vibe we were aiming for.