Dollar Tree Wedding - Red and Gold Autumn Romance

My friend is getting married next year and she seemed a bit overwhelmed with all of the planning and decorating and that other wonderful whirlwind of decisions that come along with planning an event. She's also on a budget. I offered to help out by coming up with an inexpensive centerpiece. Pretty much the only direction I got from her was that she wanted something Autumn-ish and romantic. Here's what I came up with:

 

There will be fresh flowers on the table as well that I don't have in that picture but here's a general idea of what those will look like:

The centerpiece was constructed from things I got at the dollar store:

The neat depth you can see is from painting the OPPOSITE side of the glass so that when you look at it you look through the glass to the color.  The rocks are simply those bags of river rocks from the Dollar Tree painted gold.

And a LOT of gold paint....

Just a note: I wanted to be able to put a tealight inside the centerpiece so the goblet is glued to the candle plate and the dinner plate is glued to the bowl. I attached a goblet opening sized cardboard ring to the bottom of the bowl (hot glue) so when sitting in the goblet, it will remain centered and be a bit more sturdy.  This allowed me to put a tealight (battery operated) in the goblet so it shines through the centerpiece.  I also put red silk flowers inside the bowl for just a tiny bit of extra color.

I embellished the plate a bit (the devil is in the details!)

The tissue paper and tulle flowers add texture and another little detail at a very low cost!

A tissue paper luminary. These are great especially if your venue doesn't let you use real candles. Simply insert a battery operated tealight. Tutorial here.  There will be several of them in various sizes and colors on the table.

I used a dark red yarn rather than the traditional pipe cleaner to make the tissue flower then simply tied it around a rolled up napkin. You could get more creative with the napkin folding and certainly utilize these in other ways too.

More texture is added to the centerpiece by mixing silks with the tissue flowers.  There is also a battery operated tealight inside the goblet part of the centerpiece for a little extra light.

My thumb tack pumpkin and apple (what says autumn like fall harvests!)

Tutorial here.

For the table scatter (just a little extra something)

The apple is decoupaged with tissue paper then I just added some pattern and interest with thumb tacks. Along with some silk Autumn colored leaves this adds a lot of interest and color to the table.

The guest favor boxes.  Not sure what she's going to want to put in them just yet, but I'm thinking some gold foil wrapped chocolate.  The box is made out of all those left over thumb tack boxes....tutorial here.

I've done some calculations and it will cost about $31 for the fully decorated table.  Not terrible at all for all the elements and embellishments involved!  And I certainly feel like no one will know it was made with pretty much everything from the Dollar Tree!

We'll certainly be having a bridesmaid craft party at some point or another since the craft time is about 4 hours per table. Good thing we have a year to go!

I have more to come as far as ideas for crafting this wedding, but this was my starting point. So, of course, check back for more to come!

What I used:

Dollar Tree Supplies:
Cut Glass Goblet, Plate, and Bowl. (Extra goblets for flowers)
Candle Plate
River Rocks
Foam apples and pumpkins
Thumb Tacks (Tons and tons of them... and apple takes 1.5 - 2 boxes (300 ct) and a pumpkin takes 3)
Tissue Paper
Popsicle Sticks
Silk Flowers and Leaves
Battery Operated Tealights
Yarn
Tulle
Glitter
White glue

Non Dollar Tree items:
Spray paint
Strong Glue (I like Gorilla Glue)