I spent a ton of time researching wedding centerpieces and trying to figure out what I wanted. I knew I wanted them to stand out. I wanted tall vases and I wanted to really use lighting to draw attention to the tables.
I thought I'd share what we ended up with and how I made them in case you are looking for some inspiration!
First thing I did was find the vases - look everywhere, seriously. Ours are almost 2.5 ft tall. We got them on sale at
XS Cargo which I have to say is the most random place but they were a great deal!
Make sure you wash them with super hot water and soap. Any clear glass vase you can really see the dust and fingerprints. My mom had a huge job washing out 25 vases.... I am thankful!
Then we used thin black ribbon and double sided tape and lined the top of the vase.
In the bottom of the vase, I filled it with about 8 inches of clear water beads. I bought them all from Michaels and made sure to use a 40% off coupon - found
here. Basically I got a huge bucket, poured all the water beads in and mixed in the water. I let them sit overnight. In order to get the beads into the newly washed vases without splashing all over the sides, I used a long wrapping paper roll with a funnel on top - worked perfectly! (To fill 25 vases, I used about 6 of the large packs of beads)
Once the water beads were ink, I put in a single flower. I used fake ones but real ones would have been beautiful. I used a variety of white, green, and eggplant. Again, a lot I found on sale at Michaels or used a coupon.
Last thing was the lighting. I wanted it to be fairly bright, so I bought submersible lights in white and purple (though I would recommend white as they are brighter and the purple really isn't very noticeable). The cheapest I found were at Michaels with the coupon. (I shopped A LOT at Michaels).
So while testing, I decided that about 5 lights submerged in the bottom water beads let off a decent amount of light but I still didn't get the shine that I wanted. So I cut out 25 round circles of black cardstock that sat perfectly on top of the vase (as was kind of hidden by the black ribbon lining the edges) and used double sided tape/fishing wire to adhere one light to each circle. When you put this on top of the vase and turned the light on, I got exactly the look I was going for. So a total of 6 lights per vase.
Keep in mind the lights do run out, so you want to make sure that someone twists them on and pops them in just before your guests arrive. We put some tealights surrounding the vase and a few other table items/games which I talk about in another post here.
And now, the final product!
