centrepiece size-ups...

The 29th marked the 10 month countdown to the wedding...and a mini freak out for me! As of now our monthly count down is in single digits and that seems to have come up *really* fast. Particularly when I think of the finances...*but* that's a whole 'nother ball game.

Recently the future hubby and I have started thinking about the finer details of our wedding that we need to organise - centrepieces, invitations, cakes... Today I wanted to record some of the things we've talked for our table designs.

We're slightly limited in our knowledge of just how much we can customize our place settings, linens, etc. at this stage, as they are things we need to discuss with our venue. Given that we booked our venue so far in advance, we knew it would be a while before we would have any serious meetings with our coordinator. I plan to contact her soon to start getting some information. BUT until then, we have started discussing our centrepieces and that's something we know we have some freedom around - our venue already told us that they don't have a specific selection of centrepieces included in the package like some places, rather we have an allocated section of the package to spend on whatever type of centrepiece we want (including flowers) and should other pieces of our package end up being cheaper, we can direct that money into other areas (into the centrepieces or vice versa, if centrepieces end up cheaper we can use the left over money in other areas).

Back waaaaay before we were engaged, the future hubby and I saw this personal photo on a friends Facebook page and he encouraged me to save it for future reference.

[personal photo]
With this in mind, when my mum and I went to the Bridal Expo. at our venue (before it was our venue!) and they had this on display, I knew it was something the future hubby would like.

[personal photo]
My only comment was that I felt this display was too big, too tall, that the smallest vase in this display would actually be best as the tallest - so that people can still talk across the table and see each other! When the fiancé saw the pic and other similar ones, he said the same thing.

So...We seemed to be going with the long cylinder vase idea, but not too tall. We hit up Google and discovered a number of pictures, including some of the ones below...

Given that only last year one of the fiance's best friends used a centrepiece very similar to the original pic we saved (single vase with a floating candle and a rose) we knew we wanted to make our centrepieces different and have more then one. Early into the picture hunt, we discovered that the future hubby really liked the idea of 3 vases (thinking that more looked too fussy) and really DIDN'T like mirrors underneath (personally I think the mirrors can look really classy, but agree with his opinion - I don't think they work for the feel of our wedding).

That narrowed down our search a little and started to clarify the look we were going for. Then we found this picture...

[source]

This is the future hubby's favourite so far! I was surprised by how rustic his choice was. I love it, although of course we would have to make a number of adjustments - less brown and more grey/blush/lavender, to give it more of a vintage feel. Pretty simple to do though, by adding a little lace and coloured ribbons and ties instead of brown twine. I like the idea of the wooden base, which gives a bit more interest then just the cylinders however it would depend on our venue if they can source them. Otherwise I'm tempted to hunt them down ourselves if we could find them somewhere cheap.

It seems like we are leaning less towards floral centrepieces and more towards the candle concept, however we have also toyed with the idea of each vase being something different - one with a candle, one maybe with a flower (probably one of Nanna's roses) and a floating candle, and maybe one with some flower in the top, similar to this:

[source pic 1] [source pic 2]

I also like the idea of something in the bottom of the vase with a candle sitting on top. We wouldn't use acorns, but this picture gives you an idea of what I mean:

[source]

Or even with something in the bottom and different sized candles inside...I like the idea of the candelabra inside the vase but the future hubby wasn't such a fan...but really like the table number in this pic!

[source]

We also liked the idea of the cylinder vases, but with perhaps a different top, similar to the top of these candelabras, for interest:

[source]
I had saved very few pictures of centrepieces during all my Pinning because I really had no idea what I wanted...all I knew is that I wanted the future hubby's input! It's strange how they have ended up with similar elements though...

[source pic 2] [source pic 3]

All in all, I think we're starting to get a better idea of what we want to see in the middle of our tables...which is great, because it's helping me envision the reception decor a little better! And of course, we have these great little frames to style up with our table numbers! I can't wait to get started on designing something to go inside them!

How did you guys go deciding on your centrepieces? Was/Is your future hubby involved or is it all too girly for him?