Creative ideas for centerpieces at a wedding reception?

Question

I'm trying to think of unique but cheap ideas for centerpieces at the wedding reception. I thought about maybe a fountain or misting fountain. My colors are blue and white, with red as an accent color.

I thought this was a nice fountain, but it's not in my colors:
http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/sr=1-11/qid=1174681894/ref=sr_1_11/602-1789193-8975014?ie=UTF8&asin=B000BGZHEC

This is my color, but not a very cool looking design:
http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/ref=in_pe_recently-viewed-items_1/602-1789193-8975014?ie=UTF8&asin=B000FCPLH0

If you know any other places to look for these things or have any other creative ideas, please let me know! I haven't completely ruled out flowers - I will still use some, but I'm trying to cut costs and flowers can be pricey! Thanks for your ideas and suggestions!

Answer 1

A girl I work with had several pillar candles on mirrors, and scattered some glass stones on the mirror. Cheap and elegant!

Answer 2

The fountain sounds nice, but what if it's not put together perfect or somebody knocks it? then there's water all over the table with an electric current. Plus people may not want a mist around their food, or making the room humid for the women's hair and makeup. Same thing for dry ice, its not good to have it that close to the food.

I think all the ideas about candles are lovely. If you have your heart set on a water, you could do a contained version. Like a small fishbowl with water and floating tea candles in blue and red petals floating in the water.

Answer 3

How about instead of a founatin you do more of a "smoky" thing? Keep in mind I'm bad with words, but anyway. Find a container that you like, maybe some blue and white frosted vases or bowls would be perfect, and enlist the help of a friend to fill them with dry ice right before the reception. It can be done the same way people create halloween cauldrons, like a witchs brew, so it looks like mist swirling out of them all evening. Would be really cool! I can't believe I just thought of that.

BTW- in regards to the fish answer that everyone gives, I'd just like to say that I had fish centerpieces at my wedding and it was not so good. Half of them died throughout the night and then we had no idea what to do with the rest of them.

Answer 4

This depends how many you need - if you are putting centrepieces on 20 tables, those fountains would be really expensive. I had silk flowers wired to a wicker base, which a friend made with my wedding colours (light teal, pink, yellow and lilac). If you are "out there", I really like the idea of a rose bowl with a goldfish. If I had heard of that before my wedding, that's what I would have had. Then each table had a draw at the end of the night to see who takes home the bowl.

Answer 5

Fish are pets, not centerpieces. Please don't go the fish route, it's incredibly tacky.

Consider the logistics of a fountain - they need to have electrical cords, which can be a real pain to deal with. This would be cheaper than what you've posted:

http://www.100candles.com/Items/Item_7329.htm


Be careful about using too much blue and red - it will end up looking patriotic instead of romantic (but then again, if you're going patriotic, that works). You could do half the tables in blue and white and half in red and white.

What about blue vases with white and red flowers?

These are nice for flower ideas, and for flowers, don't immediately discount silks:
http://www.uniquefloralexpressions.com/images/galleries/centerpieces/000_0128.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y113/infaith86/Wedding/centerpieceBret.jpg
http://budgetdreams.files.wordpress.com/2006/06/8350.jpg

Bonus Idea: Cake decor
http://budgetdreams.files.wordpress.com/2006/06/2002-12-31-Shay-Fe-Wedding_01-Wedding-Cake.jpg

Answer 6

The first one is quite lovely the only problem with yout color scheme is the base ceramic pot... That is easily remedied either repaint the base with ceramic paint or make a sleeve to insert over it to make it blue....

You could also mask the pot with a ring of flowers the dark color would make a beautiful background for the flowers agains the pot...

Place at center of table on top of red square of fabric and you are set...

Answer 7

The first thing looks cool. You could make it yourself, that way it would be your colors and probably a lot cheaper. Go to michaels.

I'm assuming your set with wanting a fountain center piece...

but if you arent there are a lot of cool books that michaels has that gives you ideas for making centerpieces and im sure that if you dont wanna make them yourself they can give you ideas to look for.

Answer 8

14" hurricane shade (candle shade). Stuff silk rose petals perhaps blue or red a quarter of the way up. In the middle of the rose petals put a white candle.

Gorgeous and romantic

Answer 9

candles in decorative containers can be very dramatic (especially when they are placed upon mirror tiles) and yet can be done for very inexpensive. Call around and see who has party rentals to get pricing for things like this.

You could also see if they have the fountains you want... however fountains are generally best done in limited quantites (cake table only?) as they get expensive and you have to provide electricity for each without causing a danger zone for your guests (tripping over cords, etc)

Answer 10

One idea I really liked was having live fish- in fish bowls, or in vases, with a few flowers. You might end up with a lot of fish in the end though!
Another idea is to have a group of candles- different sizes, heights and shades of blue, possibly with a little vase and a few flowers.
Another nice idea, which you could put with flowers or candle, is to have a bowl and some paper and pens- the guests write good luck messages, sayings and things on the paper and put them in the bowl- it's very cheap, and can be fun for the guests and for you when you get to read and keep all their little cards.
Another interesting idea is to have a fondue set in the middle, or else, you could use champagne glasses to form a little pyramid, and then put little buds, or floating candles in some of them.
Good luck!