Candle Depot, How Can I Help You?

Holy crap! I knew I had a bazillion candles on my pool table waiting to be used for centerpieces, but OMG I didn't really know there was this many!
Never mind the mess of toys behind me! I'm a stay at home mom, 2.5 weeks before her wedding! The house is a mess, deal! LOL.

Mr S and I took advantage of Paige going out with her father for dinner last night, to sort out the centerpieces and box them up. My biggest fear is I won't be able to get into the reception hall the night before the wedding to set up, and I will have to leave it to other people. If that should happen, I want the set up to be as easy to understand as possible! So we boxed up each tables items in separate boxes. Each one will also have a photo of the "general idea" of the centerpiece layout, and all the place cards, table name and holder.

As you see in the photo - it's not like I'm drowning in candles, but we didn't shouw you the head tables set up. 7 of those tall glasses and 36 votives, not to mention the flower vases for our bouquets well be there as well.

When all is said and done, it will be just a little over 300 candles to fill the room with candle light! I can't wait it's going to be GREAT!

This is the "general idea" for the candles. Randomly laid out, there will be crystals scattered amongst it as well to add some "bling". Bear in mind that my reception tables will not be toddler sized ;-) I was working with what I had around me at the time.

About 14 candles per table, should keep things lit up nicely for the evening! And for those of you wondering, since my pillars and medium holders are in fact NOT really candle holders, but glasses from Ikea - I did a burn test last night and they were FINE!

Move over Liberace! There's a new Queen of BLING!

I'm all about the BLING! effect on the wedding. I think the sparkle is going to be really cool and I'm trying to incorporate it in as much of the wedding as possible with out things ending up looking like one of Liberace's Vegas Show outfits.

So far I think I'm safe.

A month or so back my FMIL (come on...what's that stand for?? You keeping up with the blogs? It means: Future Mother In Law) Had this really neat idea to BLING! the centerpieces a bit. So after some searching and trial runs, she chose this: Twinklets Diamond Dust Crystals

Caution: these are actual tiny pieces of crushed glass so be careful when using it and not to place it on things little fingers (or drunken fingers for that matter) will reach for it, curious as to what it feels like.

FMIL too the crystals and added them to the rim of the tallest candle holder in the centerpiece. Here they are all boxed up - finding something to put them in until the wedding was the hardest part for her she said.

And a close up of the centerpiece all done (sans the medium candles) Please never mind the pool table and boxes around it!

The close up is better then the full shot, as it looks more like "snow" then glitter - but I assure you when it's lit the sparkle radiates! It's really cool! Plus with the specks of BLING! in the charger plate the candles sit on, it just adds even more to it! It's just the right amount of BLING!

I can't wait to have it all together so take some real pictures of it!!!

Finding my Center.... (Piece)

I took a little inspiration from Mrs Lemon on Wedding Bee, the magical appearance of great clearance items at Target and my highly creative future mother in law, and made my self the most perfect table centerpieces for the reception!

Here's a step by run down of what I did, where I got it and what it looks like....on my pool table anyway....since the wedding isn't until August.

Mrs Lemon gave me the idea of hitting up Ikea, but not limiting myself to the the candle holders only in their Home Decor area, but to venture out in to the wilderness of the Kitchen department as well. And I have to say - she was right, I made some pretty good finds!


The first one is my main piece, the center of the center piece if you will...

MJOD designed to be a 22 oz Beer glass, which I found in the Kitcehn area of course. It comes 6 to a pack for $6.99, I bought up 4 packs for a grand total of $27.96


Next tallest is also a glass designed for drinking from called SVALKA
They are 4 inches tall and come 6 to pack like the larger ones. They are bit cheaper, coming in at $4.99 a box.
(They kind of appear square in this photo from some reason but they are in fact round.)
I bought up 12 boxes as I intended to have 2-3 per center piece, for a grand total of $59.88

The last glass item I bought from Ieak that day was GLIMMA an actual item created for candles. They are 1 inch tall tea light holders, I should note these are for the 10 hour tea lights, which are a great deal larger then the regular ones you buy in a bag at Target.
The also came 6 to a pack, in a plastic round tube packaging, found in the Home Decor section. I bought up 12 backs of these at $1.29 each tea light holder for a Grand Total of $99.00

Matching GLIMMA CANDLES are sold in packs of 24 for $4.99, these are the 10 hour brun time candles. I got 4 packs for a Grand total of $19.96

The candles I used for the largest holder is called FLORERA they are 25 hour burning candles, 4 inches in height. The site says $1.49 each but I know I only paid .99 each and I needed 24 of them for a Grand Total of $23.76.


The one thing I had a hard time finding at Ikea was simple and plain votive holders and votive candles of standard size. I needed them to complete the look, so I popped over to www.candles4less.com and bought up a box of 144 votives with candles in them for a total of $80, I also bought a box of votives for the medium holders but got the wrong size and have to reorder some more and I'm thinking I will get these I just have to double check the size and make sure they will fit.

Here's the pictures of the set up on the black sparkley chargers I picked up at Target on clearnace for $1.27 a box of 4. I'm going to be 2 short because I only bought enough for 22 tables, and now I need 24 or 25. I'll make due I think that the extras just won't go on chargers. Grand Total for those is $12.00.

You have to imagine the frosted ones are replaced with the clear ones though. I didn't gt a chance to shoot off some new pics of them in the set up yet.

You can see the sparkle in the plate - it looks like white specs, but it's glitter. Don't mind the pics, I shot these on the pool table

So all in all I spent a grand total of: $239.00 and divide that by 24 tables and it's $9.96 per center piece, with left over candle holders for the cake table and head table! Not bad!!!!! And the nice thing, everything is ok to sell afterwards in most cases and I can use these things around the house if not so I'm not throwing anything away!