BrittanyMakes

It almost feels like my wedding never happened – we came back from our honeymoon, and things got back to normal waaaaaaay too quickly.  It’s true what they say, it all goes by so fast!

I’m still in that weird in-between place, that empty space somewhere between waiting for our photos and procrastinating on (and straight up hiding from) all those thank-you cards.  Most of the wedding projects I want to share are dependent on the pics, which means I’ve straight-up forced you all right here beside with me in this weird void, as we wait for all the good stuff to arrive!

BUT(!!!) I do have one really fun one to share with you today!  I’m going to show you how to make this gorgeous centerpiece!

** For all you floral enthusiasts out there, this fireball arrangement was made by the ever talented Amanda Luu, with the following flowers: White Hydrangeas, antique White Spray Roses, blush pink Garden Roses, green-bellied White Scabiosa, Dusty Miller, Pink Jasmine, Queen Anne’s Lace, and White Veronica **

When planning the look and feel of our wedding reception, I couldn’t help but be drawn to tall, golden candlestick centerpieces.  We had 15 tables (I think), and “real” candlestick holders of the right size and shape are absurdly expensive, so, naturally, I thought the best way to approach this problem would be to hack it.

I visit this salvage shop by my work, Urban Ore, a few times every week.  I strike out most of the time, but some times I stumble on the best stuff.  In this case, during that time I was mulling over hacking a candlestick centerpiece, I stumbled on a basket full of raw wood 20″ table legs. They were unmarked, I remember wishing to myself “please be less than $5 each”.  I brought the basket to the cashier and asked the price, the cashier said “$5 for the lot”.  Duh.  “I’ll take it!”

Most craft stores, like Michael’s, sell these raw wood plaques which are the perfect size for a candlestick base such as this.  I drilled a pilot hole into the bottom of each table leg, then a hole through the plaque.  Then, to secure the base to the leg, I drilled a wood screw from the underside of the plaque into the base.  I repeated this process for all 15 table legs.

Once the bases were secure, I primed and spray painted the legs in bulk.  Lastly, I used my trusty favorite gold spray paint, and applied about two coats.

Now, I bet you’re wondering how the heck you secure a big arrangement on top of that skinny candlestick.  Well, I thought it was going to be super tricky, but apparently all you need is one of these bad boys:

A floral bowl! Genius.  There are a few ways you can secure the flower bowl to the candlestick, Amanda used some puddy, but you could probably just nail it, or staple it, in place… don’t quote me on that.

Now, my mom is a florist (which was a total score on my part! $0 floral budget – thank you mom!), so it was only perfect to have her arrange the flowers for my wedding.  After a few consultations with Mom, we decided it would be more fitting if we had even TALLER arrangements! Here are the arrangements we actually had on the tables at our wedding:

So beautiful, right?  My ma’s got mad skillz.