Decorate Your Wedding Tables!
Place settings, floral centrepieces, table decorations... all make for wonderful wedding craft projects. I hope you find some inspiration here!
We also have some fab ideas for wedding favours. Enjoy!
Make Your Own Wedding Favours
If you like wrapping presents at Christmas or for birthdays, you'll love getting stuck in to wedding favours. Imagine... a hundred little presents to make and decorate. Craft heaven!
Wedding favours are great fun to make. You can choose lovely box shapes or organza bags, gorgeous decorations, ribbons and tags, and unique and original favours. It's a bit tricky to know where to start on this page, there's so much to say!
Basic DIY wedding favour ideas
Sweets and treats are traditional. Buy sugared almonds from any wedding supplier, and these days in any colour you can imagine!
For alternative sweets go to Thorntons or Woollies, depending not only on your budget but on your priorities... a cheaper chocolate or some jelly beans in a gorgeous box? Or gorgeous chocolates in a simple, classy box? (Or both if your budget allows!)
You can make your own cookies, chocolate fudge or truffles if you'd rather, and I have some recipes here to share with you. Some are tried and tested, and some just sound like lovely recipes. (I'm collecting the best from the internet and recipe books, so bear with me and I'll be able to tell you which are easiest / tastiest etc... but this will take time, my tummy has limits!)
Favours don't have to be edible, and can be anything that fits with your theme and your budget. Popular alternatives to edible favours are miniature bottles of whisky (for a Scottish or Irish theme, perhaps) from www.justminiatures.com - sometimes these are chosen for the men while the girls get to keep all the truffles - great idea!
How about using original favours as place settings with your guests' names? Buy individual mini flower pots for every guest from Rainbow Florist Supplies and use a blob of plasticine to stick a paper or silk flower into the pot. Fill with little florist's Glass Ice Crystals and tie a named gift tag around the flower stem.
Flower Seed Home Made Wedding Favours
Little handmade sachets of seed are pretty, easy to make and a lovely gift that your guests really will use, and love, months and even years after your wedding.
You can buy little envelopes from sites like www.pdacardandcraft.co.uk or you could make little sachets. For seed favours it’s a nice touch to use handmade paper with a little tag or label.
To make a paper sachet, find one ready made on the high street, peel it apart carefully (discard whatever is in there) to see how it ‘works’, and use the general shape it to make your template. You might have to make yours a little smaller. (Look for seed packets, little gifts in card shops, buttons or needles in sewing shops, all of which often come in little packets.)
Draw your template as many times as you need onto the paper you’re going to use, and then cut them all out.
Fold them where the creases should be, then use a glue pen / roller to stick two sides. To make sure the glue dries properly and they’re stuck tight, put something heavy on top of them for fifteen minutes or so – a big book is perfect.
Make a little decorative label for the front of your sachet, with a square of contrasting card (corrugated card is nice), a paper flower to indicate what your seeds are and a little bow.
You don’t need to completely fill the sachets with seeds – fill about 10% of your envelope or little packet.
Print or hand write little labels with guests’ names for your sachets.
Popular seed choices are
- forget-me-not – plant in spring
- alyssum – plant in spring
- candytuft – plant in spring or summer
- cornflower – plant in spring or autumn
- sunflower – plant in spring (many different varieties in all shades of yellow, red and even deep burgundy; dwarf varieties too)
- sweet pea – plant in spring (beautifully scented, but choose a dwarf variety for less experienced gardeners – there’s one called Cupid which is lovely, easy to grow and kind of fits the theme!)
- lavatera – plant in spring
- lupin – plant in spring or autumn
- nasturtium – plant in early or late spring (the most common colour is a mix of oranges and yellows, but consider an unusual variety such as the rich red ‘Empress of India’)
- poppies – plant in spring or autumn
- stock – plant in late spring (pretty little pastel coloured flowers, with a really stunning scent in the evenings)
Choose seeds that your guests can plant pretty soon after your day. If you give out seeds in July that should be planted the following May, chances are your guests will lose them or forget.
These are lovely favours, very popular and fun to make. Enjoy!
Wedding Favour Chocolate Fudge Recipe
This fudge recipe is really easy to do, ready in no time and tastes gorgeous. Use three squares of fudge in each favour box - wrap them in coloured cellophane (available from www.Lakeland.co.uk) and add a tag with your guests' names.
Ingredients
- 150g unsalted butter
- 1Kg dark chocolate
- 800ml condensed milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
You'll need two 20cm square cake tins - grease them and line with baking parchment before you start (you'll have sticky, chocolatey fingers in a minute!)
Melt the butter over a very low heat in a large saucepan. Break your chocolate into squares and add it to the melting butter, then add the condensed milk to the pan.
Keep stirring until you have a lovely smooth mixture and all the chocolate has melted. If the mixture starts to boil turn the heat right down or remove from the heat.
Remove the pan from the heat once everything is melted. Add the vanilla extract and stir well.
Beat the fudge mixture with a spatula or wooden spoon for a few minutes until it's thickened nicely. Divide the mixture between your two cake tins and use a metal spoon to smooth the top of the mixture in each tin.
Leave the fudge to cool for half an hour (cover it with a tea towel), and when the cake tins are cooler, put it in the fridge for a further 45 minutes until it sets.
When you're ready to pack your favour boxes, tip the fudge out of the cake tins and chop into 2cm squares.
Test a few pieces, just in case!
The fudge will keep for a couple of weeks if kept refrigerated.
Vases, Votives and Glassware for Wedding Centrepieces
Present your flowers and table centrepieces in the right way, and your reception tables will look exceptional.
There's a fabulous choice of unusual vases and all sorts of reasonable glassware at www.easyfloristsupplies.co.uk - have a look at the candle votives too - these would double up as lovely favours with a few pretty wrapped chocolates or a flower inside.
Vases and containers are important. The vase is almost like a frame for your flowers, and more besides.
Using the right vase will show your flowers to their best advantage. Glass vases make wonderful effects with reflection and distortion of the flowers, especially if you fill them with water.
Group vases in threes or fives to create stunning centrepieces for your tables and to add real personality to your wedding table decorations.
Make Your Own Floral Centrepieces: Special Effects With Flowers!
To add a really distinctive designer touch to your wedding tables, make centrepieces with submerged flowers in beautiful glass vases.
You can use all kinds of flowers underwater (imagine them upside down in the vase, with the blooms at the bottom and the stems twisted around the top, still under the surface of the water).
Flowers which can be submerged include calla lilies, orchids, tulips and hydrangeas. The water really highlights the flowers, makes the colours look stronger and the blossoms appear larger. For a magical effect add a little sparkling water to top up the vase. The bubbles will attach themselves to the flower petals!
Either keep the stems on the flowers, or detach the flower heads. If you detach the flower heads, you'll find the flowers float to the top of the vase. (So experiment with glass beads at the bottom of a long cylindrical vase, sparkling water, and orchid blossoms floating just below the surface of the water. Stunning!
