Centered, Once Again

What do you get when you cross tin cans, tea lights and faux flowers?

Rehearsal dinner centerpieces!

After several weeks of going back and forth (mason jars or glass vases? MASON JARS OR GLASS VASES?!?!) and sales on neither, our RD centerpiece idea kind of fell into my lap. I had headed to Michaels to round up the last of the pink peonies we would need to adorn the cake, when I went a-wandering past the dollar bins. Fate, I tell ya. I found these adorable swirly tin cans for a dollar apiece:

They had a little metal ring already set up on the inside to hold a tea light. Off in search of tea lights! I was hoping I wouldn't have to deal with real candles, but I knew how expensive LED tea lights could get, and let's face it, this was (another) zero-budget project. I figured it couldn't hurt to see what LED options Michaels had though, since I was already there and everything.

Believe when I say luck was on my side! Somehow I got a box of 20 flickering LED tea lights for $1.49!  Somebody mislabeled the shelf they were stocked on, down from its original $19.99. Win!

I know you can't really tell the size of the tin cans from the pictures, but they're kind of on the smaller side. Since we'll have one per table on the 10 picnic tables in the covered park pavilion where our rehearsal dinner will be, I didn't think this alone was quite enough. I don't want wimpy centerpieces! Back to the floral department!

Much better! Don't those colors look familiar? How lucky that Michaels had a bunch of the tin cans in varying shades of maroon-ish, pink-ish, and ... well, they only had one lime green, but I snagged it anyway. :) Who's counting?

As the sun fades, and the party continues into the evening ... the soft glow of the tea lights will emit from the swirls ... assuming the giant florescent lights in the pavilion don't drown it out.

Now, here's how I made this happen. Obvs, with the flowers on the top, it would be difficult to get to the tea lights to turn them on and off. So, when I cut the flowers to fit into the cans, I kept some of the greenery, and hot-glued the whole mess of foliage together into one piece. Now, before the rehearsal, we can just dump the flowers out, turn on the LEDs and put the flowers back in, and they'll look exactly the same. Done and done!

The only thing left before I wrap up this little project is the tablecloths to cover up the metal picnic tables. There will be a plethora of beer and barbecue on the tables (which I'm sure will not be messy at all), so I bought some cheap white plastic tablecloths from the dollar store to cover the tables.

Tell me about your rehearsal dinner! What are you doing for centerpieces? And most importantly, what food are you serving? ;)