Wedding Centerpieces - Design Tips and Ideas

I love creating wedding centerpieces. They allow you to show your individual style and can provide that 'wow' factor to a reception venue.

You've probably seen pictures of celebrity weddings with lavish arrangements. The cost of these can soon add up. With an average reception having 8-12 tables they can quickly swallow your budget.

Here I've put together some ideas from real-world brides for your wedding centerpieces.

Design Tips

The main thing on people's mind at a wedding reception is chatting to old friends, listening to the speeches and generally socialising. Don't let your arrangements get in the way of this. If guests have to move your arrangements to talk to the person on the other side of the table, then you've failed.

wedding centerpieces

I like to design arrangements either as low decorations that you can speak over, or tall thin arrangements. A lot of the brides that I have spoken to recently are choosing the tall arrangements, like the one in the photo above.

Take care using strong scented flowers like lilies. I personally love the smell, but some people find it overpowering. You don't want to put anybody off of their food because of the flower fragrance.

The success of many table centres is because of the vases that were selected, not just the flowers. Many florists like us include vase hire in their quotes but check with your particular provider.

Tall Wedding Centerpieces

An idea that works well for tall modern arrangements is to submerge the whole flower in water. This can be tried with tulips, roses and cymbidium orchids. The water will start to cloud after a day or two so don't prepare them too long in advance.

Another idea is to use a thin tall vase with a cascading flower arrangement on top of it. In the photo above you can see that these two ideas have been combined.

Click here for more ideas on creating tall centerpieces.

Low Wedding Centerpieces

A classic low centrepiece is a posy arrangement of flowers that co-ordinate with the bride's bouquet such as roses and tulips.

For a modern look that is a bit different you could take a collection of different sized vases and use them as the basis for a centerpiece. Fill them to different heights with water and place various types of flowers in them. Colour co-ordinate them by using coloured granules in the bottom of the vases. Above is a photo showing this idea with cymbidium orchids.

For more pictures and ideas for low centerpieces, click here.

Your Wedding Theme

Wedding Centerpieces are a great way to establish the theme of your wedding. If you are having a tropical or beach theme, you can choose exotic flowers such as anthuriums or heliconia and use decorations such as seashells.

If you want a romantic feel you can use candles with your wedding centerpieces or have heart-shaped centerpieces.

Alternatively if you want to keep everything simple, choose some elegant flowers such as calla lilies that look great with the minimum decoration.

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