Weddingbee Blog

We chose to use milk glass bud vases in our centerpieces for two reasons. One, we could pick them up at thrift stores for just dollars and two, because bud vases meant less flowers, which meant less money. Way back in the beginning when I first started buying wedding magazines and reading wedding websites I remember reading this money saving tip: Use bud vases in your centerpieces because they require only a couple stems each.

For our Seattle wedding reception we filled our milk glass with a bright and colorful mixture of pink, orange, and green fresh flowers, but what to do about our Indiana reception? The orange, goldenrod, turquoise and red color palette has a more rustic flair. Thankfully, the vintage look of milk glass blends in nicely with this rustic vibe.

I decided that we could reuse our hanging lanterns from our Seattle wedding. The lanterns hung from a bent wooden dowel on turquoise ribbon. Lookie there, one of our accent colors! We could switch out the brightly colored lanterns with more earthy ones.

Burnt Orange, Orange, Squash, Brown, & Red Lanterns from The Paper Lantern Store

Lets be honest, I didn’t really want to fuss with fresh flowers. MIL Pretzel took a silk floral arranging class when planning my sister-in-law’s wedding. She’s amazing. I figured it was easiest to purchase silk flowers online and have them mailed to her in Indiana. I set out to find red and orange flowers to complete the centerpieces. For what I was looking for, www.Afloral.com seemed to have a the best selection and price so I ordered a couple samples.

19″ Flame Ranunculus Bush with 7 Flowers and 2 Buds,

Silk Mum Bush in Brick Orange - 22″ Tall

Mini Poppy Spray in Flame Orange - 21″ Tall

Artificial Japanese Lantern in Orange Yellow

Bittersweet Branch Spray in Red - 31″ Tall

This gave me quite a variety to start with, but my eyes wandered and I ordered some dried flowers from Save-On-Crafts. The thistle was expensive, $17 for 12 stems, and I am not really sure what my vision was.

Giant Aspen Gold Natural Preserved Thistle Stems & Black Beard Wheat Stalks

Armed with my fake florals, I mocked up some examples. Let me tell you, those thistles are cool looking but damn do they hurt!

Mums, Lanterns, Ranunculus, and poppy

Mums, Lanterns, Ranunculus, and poppy

Wheat and Thistle

Thistle alone

Ranunculus, Bittersweet, and Thistle

I wasn’t too impressed with the quality of the mums. Likewise, the bittersweet looked like a child’s toy. The thistle was very stiff and thick stemmed, making arranging difficult. In person, the wheat left me feeling mehhh. By far my favorites were the ranunculus, lanterns and poppy. I wanted to be sure to include some red and thankfully found a red ranunculus. Click, click, click and I had the following flowers ordered up.

27″ Ranunculus Spray in Red

Mini Poppy Spray in Flame Orange - 21″ Tall

Artificial Japanese Lantern in Orange Yellow

19″ Flame Ranunculus Bush with 7 Flowers and 2 Buds

I sent my samples off to MIL Pretzel and called this phase of planning done. I swear, the second time around all of these decisions are a lot easier.

Did you use fake flowers in your centerpieces? Where did you find the best selection?