Lantern Centerpieces

Now that our major vendors are taken care of it's time for us to focus on the smaller details of the wedding, like centerpieces and other decorations. Rather than having one centerpiece repeated on each of the tables, Zac and I really want to have a few different centerpieces to keep the decor more interesting and less predictable. We have a few ideas in mind including vases (like the wine carafes I got from work) filled with flowers, bowls of lemons, and tons of votive candles.

One centerpiece idea that I'm very excited about is having an assortment of lanterns on a few of the tables. I loved the way it looked in these pictures I found on theknot.com:

I think with some candles and flowers the lanterns will look fantastic as centerpieces at our reception.

Looking around online for lanterns that would go with our color scheme, Zac and I found these galvanized lanterns on the Ikea website. At 11" tall these lanterns would be big enough to hold a good size candle but they wouldn't be too tall that our guests would be blocked from seeing the people sitting across from them. Since we don't have an Ikea close to us we thought that we would wait until this fall and take a day trip to the Ikea store.

Yesterday, we headed into Lowe's to get supplies to finish up Zac's newest project. During our shopping trip we found...silver lanterns! Though not identical, they were pretty similar to the lanterns we found on the Ikea website.

Not only would we be saving on shipping by not ordering online from the website (or gas money if we decided to take a trip out to the nearest Ikea to check them out in person) but we found that we would be saving a bunch of money buying the lanterns from Lowe's because they were on clearance. The original price of $7.99 had been reduced to $4.50.

Zac and I were sold! We picked up 10 of the silver lanterns. We aren't sure exactly how the table arrangements will be just yet but we figure 10 will do for now. If we perhaps decide to use the lanterns to line the aisle or decorate other areas of the venue we'll have to head back to Lowe's soon before the clearance sale is over or the store runs out of the lanterns.

To go along with the lantern centerpieces, I picked up six small yellow wire lanterns from Joann's Fabrics back in April. The $12 lanterns were on sale for 75% off. Thanks to a coupon for 10% my total purchase (if you haven't signed up to get coupons from Joann's I highly recommend that you do!) the lanterns turned out to be a great buy. The yellow should add a nice pop of color to our reception tables.