Weddingbee boards

Today I made up all the centerpieces.

I took my million boxes out onto the pavement in front of my garage. I figured I could spread out more there, and be messier.

It sounds so simple, but the whole endeavor took me about 4 hours. There were a lot of things to unwrap and put together, and trash to take to the dumpster, and internet-ordered items had been packed box within a box within a box...

First I put together the card box that I got from Oriental Trading. I like it quite a lot! It's not perfect, but it was dirt cheap, and I think it was a great value. I also got some little cards from Oriental Trading, and my SIL-to-be made me some nice pens with fake roses on the ends for people to use. I'm going to make a sign asking people to write us some good wishes or advice to the newlyweds and drop it in the box.

Look how gorgeous these pens are! She did such a great job. I would be thrilled beyond words if my wedding bouquet flowers looked exactly like these pens. What kind of rose are these flowers modeled after???

Now on to the centerpieces. I found cylinder vases for $3 each at the Crate & Barrel outlet store, and picked up 12 (one for each table) without knowing for sure exactly what I was going to put in them. Then I remembered all the fake, sparkly snow that I picked up at the after-Christmas sales last year. I decided to fill each vase with sparkly snow and then put silver dollar branches (fake, ordered from saveoncrafts.com) into each one. One vase on each table. Each vase will be surrounded by 6 votive candles (ordered from candles4less.com).

Look! A cauldron of snow! (I had to mix together the bags of white snow and the bags of sparkle snow.)

And the finished vision. (It looks like it's leaning because it IS leaning -- the pavement there is on an angle...)

I decided to add a bead garland string on the top of each vase because (1) I had them around already from the before-mentioned after-Christmas sales, and (2) the snow is incredibly fly-away. The garland on top helps keep it inside the vase.

The mirror that I set the vases on isn't as big as I'd hoped it would be (in relation to the vase) -- I picked them up when I ran across them at Dollar Tree. But I'm hoping even just that little bit of mirror will still help reflect a little candlelight. The candles are nice and low in relation to the holders, so they should stay lit even though they will be outside in the wind.

We will be using the white linens, tables, and chairs provided by the venue. So besides the centerpieces, decor will be a billion fairy lights (after-Christmas sale!) strung around in the trees and pavillion rafters. And that's it.

I hope that the effect doesn't end up too terribly white-on-white-on-white. I considered getting some colored fabric squares to put underneath the centerpiece, something burgundy or silver or soft gold. But frankly, I just don't have the bandwidth for dealing with that. If my sister happens to find something while she's out and about, and she brings it over, then great. If she doesn't, it'll still be fine. I could also decide to sprinkle some freeze-dried red rose petals about, depending on how much is leftover after we fill the flower-girl baskets.

And here's the glitter-snow mess I left behind on the pavement. At first, my FI thought it was broken glass.

We got engaged right before Christmas last year, so I went shopping on literally the day after Christmas.

I picked up all the Christmas stuff at Garden Ridge last year.