Bright, Fun Look for about $5.00 per Table

by Jeaneene the Queen
(Northern Michigan)

I wanted an upbeat, different, colorful tablescape for my late summer outdoor wedding.

Everything I looked at was so expensive, and I had a small decorating budget. (We splurged on the food.)

One day I was looking at silk flowers at a big box store to see if that might be a good direction. To my surprise, silk flowers can cost just as much as real ones!

Then I saw them! Tall (about 18") single Chrysanthemums in gorgeous colors! There were fushia, orange and lime green! They cost $3.00 each. I snatched up an armload not knowing how I would use them.

I got an idea to use a single flower in a cylindrical glass vase per table. I found these at the dollar store for $1 each. We got some sand and pebbles and filled each vase. This allowed the single stem to stand upright. We tied a bright ribbon around at mid-vase. We used the same colors of vinyl tablecloths as the flowers, but varied each color so the different flowers would show up.

Then we twisted a length of white tulle to equal the distance across the tablecloth. It was twisted at each table edge (i.e., two places). We set the vases in the center and sprinkled plastic "ice" around it.

To finish the look, we used white favor boxes tied up with a wired ribbon in the same 3 colors: fushia, orange, and lime. These were scattered on the tables.

Our paperware repeated the theme colors. This turned out to be a delightful and sophisticated scheme and was amazingly cheap to do.
I received a lot of compliments on it.

Of course, your own choice of colors could be different, but I suggest using three colors that are vibrant and trendy to pull this off. No one will know you didn't spend a small fortune on your decorating.