The V Spot

Rants, observations, and home decorating... from a woman with no time for a blog.


Big impact floral centerpieces using 3 “ingredients”

27 Comments

Several weeks ago we went to a wedding… I made the centerpieces:

Tamayo, LA, Los Angeles, Limes, fruit, calla lilies, reception, wedding

…and Grant was the most adorable ring-bearer evah

For the centerpieces, I wanted to keep the costs as low as possible. Like most people, the bride and groom were on a budget.  They wanted big impact with a little price tag.

A great way to do that…?

#1 get a thrifty family member (um, me) to do them for free
#2 create a tall arrangement
#3 use fruit
#4 use 1 kind of flower
#5 use sticks and branches

I use fruit a lot because it’s cheap & easy.  (You know how I love cheap & easy…)
The bride bought these tall vases and brought them to me.

glass vases

Their reception was at Tamayo, an historic Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles that featured some amazing Mexican artwork, so I used limes and calla lilies.

Tamayo restaurant, Los Angeles, LA, wedding reception, party

I filled the vases with a combination of sliced, halved and whole limes then added water.  This did a couple of things:

  1. they added color and texture,
  2. they added height to the arrangement because the flowers and sticks were elevated,
  3. they added weight and prevented the arrangement from being top-heavy
  4. they served as sort of a frog to help keep the stems and sticks in place

Then I added the lilies and the sticks.  I also added ribbon around the middle of the vase to hide where the stems and the limes met.

It was cheap and relatively easy.  They ended up costing less than $18 to make.
Sticks were free in the street (you know how I loves me some sticks), I got 10-stem bunches of the lilies for $6 a bunch, and limes were 4/$1.  So basically the vase was the most expensive part of the arrangement ($9)

Oh… and because I keep it real…? This had an element of Craft Fail in it.  The lilies were so fresh that they did not adequately open in time for the reception.  If I do this again, I will buy the lilies the day before the event, rather than the morning of.

oopsey.  Oh well.  I’ll know for next time!

Comments

  1. Oooh, first comment.

    VIV!!!! Those are amazing. I love, love the simplicity and the burst of color. You did an amazing job…they were so smart to ask you, budget or no budget.

    Reply

  2. I’m with Kelli, I love the simplicity of these. I was never big on bold or bright colors at weddings, but the more I see of it the more I like it – especially greens and blues. The limes really are a nice touch of color.

    Great job as always!!

    Reply

  3. they look gorgeous! i wish i would have had you around when i got married because my centerpieces were wayyy more expensive than this and honestly, probably didn’t create as much of an impact.
    i love the look of limes in water. loks awesome. this makes me want to go out and buy some limes and calla lillies : )

    Reply

  5. Wow! That looks really great! I’m going to line my table with those next time my in laws are in town. Then I won’t be able to see them across the table.

    Reply

  10. Beautiful! You got an awesome deal on the callas…I work at a flower shop and payed $3.50 per stem wholesale for callas this week.

    Reply

  14. G melts my heart. I love him.

    Those arrangements were awesome! YOU ARE SO FREAKIN’ TALENTED!

    Will you please redecorate my entire house with your cuteness!?!? PLEASE? Kthanks.

    Reply

  16. Hi Viv-

    Thanks for the visit. What great centerpieces – the height is great – and the colors – yumm. They look more like they cost $118 each or more.

    Love the first photo in your post. What a cutie. I bet he had a lot of people wanting to kiss those cheeks.
    My best- Diane

    Reply

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