First Attempt at DIY Wedding Décor

The midnight supervisor (Matyka) at my office has been telling for the last two months that I’m behind on wedding plans and need to do X,Y, & Z by such-and-such a date. I came into work one day to find a stack of bridal books on my desk.

Personally, I thought we were on track, even though finding a condo has taken up most of our free time. However, once that came to a stalemate, I was re-energized for wedding plans. I searched online for easy do-it-yourself ideas that I could start on right away. I didn’t want to wait until a couple months before the wedding, when working on crafts would stress me out as opposed to be being fun. I honed in on candles, centerpieces, and flower girl baskets. So, on a furlough day, Matyka and I looked to see what we could find.

It took all day and searching two dollar stores, Michaels, and Walmart to find the supplies (some of which didn’t work out and need to be returned).

The fruits of our labors were individual candles (R for Robert and M for Melanie) for lighting the unity candle. (The actual unity candle still is waiting to be created, since I didn’t buy enough pillar candles.)

We also put together three memorial candles. I saw these on a website and thought making one at least for Rob’s father would be nice. I know that Rob wishes his father could be there to witness our happiness on the special day, so something commemorating him was important for me to do for him.

The candles were surprisingly easy to make. I found the poem online and added the appropriate names to each. Then, we printed the poem out on vellum (translucent paper) and taped to the candle. After that, we attached a ribbon with hot glue to dress the candles up a bit.

I loved the way they turned out. I’m glad I could find easy and pretty ways to personalize our wedding and pay tribute to those that have passed away who were important in our lives.

We also created a sample centerpiece. When I started off, I didn’t know exactly what I wanted for a centerpiece. I thought perhaps simply candles would be nice. After seeing a picture of flowers in water with a floating candle on top, though, I attempted to re-create it for our wedding.

Searching for flowers may have been the most difficult part. I was leaning towards silk flowers, so that the centerpieces could be done ahead of time (aside from adding water and lighting the candle). Michael’s had lots of flowers that were pricier than I expected. Ten dollars or more for one fake flower wasn’t what I was expecting, and the purpose of creating this centerpiece with fake flowers was to cut down on the expense of bouquets at each table. For that price, I might as well use the real thing. Finding a small bouquet of yellow roses was exactly what I was looking for, although at first attempt I was not so sure.

Putting roses and ribbon to fill in didn’t look right. Also, I accidentally bought purple rocks to put in the bottom of the vase—they looked silver in the store!

Using what I had around me, I added some natural-looking rocks and added leaves to the roses, which made the vase look very elegant.

I also added some votive candles (also compliments of our dining room table centerpiece) around the vase to get the desired effect.

The centerpiece was incredibly easy to make and I think it looks beautiful. I think this centerpiece will likely adorn some, though perhaps not all, tables at our reception. To mix it up, I’m thinking of a couple of different centerpieces, one of which may be the traditional route of fresh flowers.

I hope that once we find a condo, I can get to my future DIY projects--unity candle and flower girl baskets (once I find the baskets and flowers).