Weddingbee boards

Hi guys!  So I was really in love with the idea of doing a shallow glass bowl with floating candles and floating flowers, surrounded by votives kind of like this one (source):

I met with a florist yesterday and she pointed out that since these centerpieces would be so low, they'd be below all the wine glasses, water glasses, champagne flutes, etc, and so our guests wouldn't be able to see then until they were standing right over them.  So when you look out over the room, you wouldn't be able to see any of the centerpieces.  I hadn't even considered that, and now I'm really bummed out about it.  Have any of you been to a wedding where centerpieces like this were used?  Did it look underwhelming because they were hidden by all the glassware?

I'm cosidering buying some glass blocks like this from a hardware store and placing the bowls on them to elevate them a little more - does that seem like it might work?

Also, has anyone DIY-ed floating centerpieces like this?  The florist quoted me about $75 for doing a few tall thin vases with sunken orchid stems and floating candles on top.  That seems steep to me, but she said the cost comes from having to send a crew to do the installation the day of, instead of being able to assemble the flowers in advance and just having to send one person to put them on each table.  I think they'd be pretty simple to do myself, but then do I need to ask someone to do the assembly the day of, or can you sink the flowers a day or two in advance?

Thanks for all the advice!

Thanks guys!  I just found this article http://www.weddingaces.com/2009/04/diy-centerpieces-long-lasting-orchids-in-glass/ about DIYing the submerged orchids.  Basically, they suggest putting the orchids in the vases with only an inch of water, then filling it the rest of the way the day of to keep the water from getting cloudy.  According to them, you can do this 3-5 days before the wedding, to avoid last minute franticness.

Lindsay8 - we are thinking of doing the floating ones for cocktail hour, if we decide that theyre too low for centerpieces.  The florist isn't selling us the vases - they're just renting them to us.  If they were selling them to us, at least we could resell them later to recoup the costs.  But the florist is saying that the main cost is labor for assembly.

Could you do half the tables with the low bowl and do the other half of the tables with a taller centerpiece? That's a very common thing I've seen - to mix the low and high centerpieces. That way you get the intimate low centerpieces, but in pictures, you get the drama of the higher centerpieces.

I do kind of agree that in pictures at least, all low/small centerpieces don't show up very well. It kind of looks like the tables aren't decorated. In person however, I don't think that would really be a problem.

@MightySapphire - Thanks!  Those look great, and what a fantastic price!  Any chance you have some larger pics of the room so I could see how they looked walking in?  Yeah, I'm leaning towards the "what was she smoking" explanation too...  The only thing I can think is that she's a florist, so she must love flower arragements and was trying to talk me out of going with something less flower-centric?  Very strange.

@MrsJellybean227 - Wow, I'm really surprised to hear that!  I do floating bowls like these all the time for christmas and parties and whatnot, and I've never had a bowl break!  It must depend on the thickness of the bowl, and whether it's open (like MightySapphire's) or if the glass comes around and is directly over the flames.  Lesson learned - definately do a trial!