Sometimes Real Is Best

Sometimes Real Is Best

February 13th, 2007 @ 1:34 pm by Mrs. Emerald
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For my low centerpieces, I got my inspiration from this picture that I found on brides.com - a lantern surrounded by a lush “garden” of blooms.

Sometimes Real Is Best : wedding candles decor flowers lighting Z470746 cp63

For the lantern in the middle, I found 10 fabulous ones (see below) on Ebay for the bargain basement price of $6 each, and $6 shipping for the whole batch (it was a BIG box too)! I’ve also seen this same exact lantern sold on wedding websites for $25 each! Ouch.

Anywhoo, the lantern has a little tea light holder inside. But based on my experience, regular tea lights only burn for maybe 2-3 hours tops, and I wanted it to be lit all night for potentially 6-7 hours. So, with a little Ebay-sleuthing, I found these nifty doodads: Battery operated LED flickering tea lights with the promise of 40+ hours of “burn” time! Fabuloso!

Sometimes Real Is Best : wedding candles decor flowers lighting Z753075 led candles

Ehhh… not so much. In actuality when I received them, they were kind of… lame. They had a faint amber glow, but the glow was seriously dinky. Case in point, take a look:

Sometimes Real Is Best : wedding candles decor flowers lighting Z753078 lcd candle

This first picture is using the faux tea light in my lantern. I *guess* it could pass, if you have nothing to compare it to…

Sometimes Real Is Best : wedding candles decor flowers lighting Z75307801 real candle

But then when you put in a REAL tea light, notice how the candle lights up the entire interior of the lantern, and really gives off a more romantic, and definitely more noticeable glow. It’s kind of difficult to see a big difference in these pictures, but even Mr. E said, “Uhm, seriously, let’s go with real candles” when he saw the difference.

So, back to Ebay I go! Another search turned up these “20 long burning tea lights” which are supposed to last up to 8 hours. I’ll have to test them so I guess we’ll see about that! In the meantime, the other seller was nice enough to let me return the LED candles to him for a refund, which amounts to oh, a whole $11 or so after the loss of shipping and handling (I paid $21). Oh well, whatever, I don’t need more junk sitting around my townhouse. I just hope these new tea lights live up to their long burning promise!

P.S. We are planning to spray paint these lanterns bronze cuz I think the white is too stark. What do you think??

Tags: candles, decor, flowers, lighting |

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10 Responses to “Sometimes Real Is Best”

Guest

twelvetigers

Bronze might reflect the light around better, but I think white looks pretty nice otherwise.

I’m interested to hear about those special tealights… I’d like to have tealights but I also want them to last more like 4 hours at least.

2/13/07 @ 1:41 pm (reply)

Guest

Miss Lime

Miss Pearl turned me onto long burning tea lights that they sell in restaurant supply stores in bulk. I think they’re supposed to burn 5-6 hours +, so maybe check that out.

On white vs. bronze, I think it depends on the rest of your color scheme. White would work best for mine as I want some crisp starkness to contrast against the colors I’m using, but it may not for yours (can’t remember, and can’t look it up right now).

Cute centerpiece idea overall, though!

2/13/07 @ 1:43 pm (reply)

Guest

jlz

I love the lanterns! I think they would look even more beautiful in bronze, but as Miss Lime said, that depends on the rest of your decor. Good luck with the tea light situation.

2/13/07 @ 1:51 pm (reply)

Guest

Miss Strawberry

I’m doing lanterns too and haven’t been able to find a lot of bronze ones. Spray paint one! I’d love to see how it looks!

2/13/07 @ 1:56 pm (reply)

Guest

Mrs. Snowbride

I bought those LED tealights, too…and promptly returned them-they were horrible! I was using deep red votive holders on all my tables and those lights made everything look orange. Nothing beats the real thing. As for color of the lanterns, it has to go with your color scheme-the white isn’t awful but if your flowers are deeper shades, I would go with the bronze.
What color linens are you using? That will be a contributing factor as well…

2/13/07 @ 1:58 pm (reply)

Guest

Jenny GoLightly

Hahaha…I have to laugh about those LED tealights. My mom set my dad with the task of going to Michael’s and getting a bag of real tealights they had on sale for $1.50. She came home and he was SO PROUD of himself that he found those LED things. She took one look at the LED tealight and told him to return them. Hahaha!

2/13/07 @ 2:04 pm (reply)

Guest

PhillyM

It looks like those might be able to hold votive lights (which will burn longer than you need them to). Many places sell the votives already poured into their glass votive holders (like AC Moore and Jamali garden). Maybe they would fit? Here’s a pic:

http://www.jamaligarden.com/apps/catalog/product.asp?pID=19283

2/13/07 @ 2:25 pm (reply)

Guest

Angie

Did you try the big fat tapers only shorter? I swear I saw some 2-3 inch taper-ish things.. I’m gonna do a quick search.
Heres some examples:
http://www.discountcandleshop.com/product_info.php/products_id/44
http://shop.vendio.com/firedogs3/item/797986287/?s=1171278005

You could chop the bottoms off to make them shorter. They might be rather messy though.
Just an idea! GOOOOD LUCK!
As for the lantern. I like it white, but it is a bit stark if white isn’t in your color scheme.

2/13/07 @ 6:21 pm (reply)

Guest

Brooke

What seller did you get the lanterns from? Very pretty.

2/13/07 @ 8:44 pm (reply)

10.

Guest

Cat

I have a brass coffee table I painted with 2 cans of primer and 2 cans of hammered-texture bronze spraypain. It looks great- the special texture evens out the drip marks But I’d test one… I know spraypaint is flammable when wet, not sure about dry, but I suspect a metal lantern could get pretty hot after 6-8 hours. You also might also be able to fit small votives/holders into the lanterns if tealights won’t cut it. I’ve seen some online that claim to burn up to 10, though.

2/14/07 @ 2:22 am (reply)