Waterfall Centerpiece Reveal!

I realize I've left you guys hanging with my centerpieces ever since I shared my inspiration with you months ago.It's not so much that I'm a bad blogger bee as much as I was a bad bride. I actually only finished assembling my centerpieces three days before the wedding, which is beyond ironic since the main reason I wanted to DIY them in the first place was to have them done way ahead of time.To achieve the look I was going for,  I needed to find three vases of different heights, some silk orchids, 3" floating candles, blue floralytes, and some crystals to cover them up.

The first thing I tackled were the flowers. After visiting Wal-Mart, Michaels, Ikea, and about a million Dollar Stores, I found Calfolia, a silk flower warehouse in Montreal. I purchased all the white orchids that they had at 4$/stem to carry on my all-white floral theme. Then came the hard part, finding the vases. I spent months searching for the perfect glass vases in three different heights, within my budget. I was easily able to find 6" and 9" vases at the Dollar Store, but couldn't find a 12" vase to save my life until last Christmas, when I discovered them in a random Dollar Store. They only had about 5 in stock that day, but after months of making the rounds of our local Dollar Stores, we had accumulated all the vases that we needed. Next, we ordered 3" floating candles from Dlightonline.com, which was the cheapest we found at time. We also decided to skip the floralytes in order to save money. Unfortunately, by this point, I got very sick and had to put all wedding crafting on hold. Here is the initial mockup:

I asked our venue coordinator if we could bring a set of centerpieces to our final meeting in order to see them in the space, and she happily obliged. The problem with this was that we had some scheduling conflicts and were only able to meet the week before the wedding. I must admit that when I finally saw the centerpieces in the space, my heart sank a little, and not in a good way. They looked so tiny and barely made an impact in the huge room. I had liked the sleek, understated look of these centerpieces because the Versailles room was so ornate, but now, they just looked plain cheap. The tables were so big and the centerpieces barely filled any space at all. Cue bridal freak-out.

If you're making your own centerpieces and have the chance to see them in your space beforehand, I highly suggest you do it. I would have been sooooo disappointed if this had been our final look, but trying them out allowed us to make some last minute adjustments. First of all, the tables had not been set up; once all the table settings, utensils and stemware were in place, they took up a lot of room. Our awesome venue coordinator also suggested that we add a small mirror underneath to reflect the light, and I also tried adding the floralytes that I had purchased for my initial mockup, and they made a huge difference once we filled the vases (pictured without water above). So, with only a few days left to go, we were scrambling to find a bunch of floralytes and mirrors. We were able to find the mirrors at Ikea and I called my florist to ask where I might find some cheap floralytes since we didn't have time to order them online. At her suggestion, I sent Papi Waterfall to Chinatown, where he actually tested every single floralyte to make sure they were all working - seriously, best dad ever.  The floralytes were a huge pain, execution-wise, but totally worth it in the end. Our venue coordinator was nice enough to agree to fill the vases, set them up on the tables, and light all the candles, but the centerpieces needed to be pre-assembled. Ideally, the floralytes would go at the bottom of the vase, followed by the beads, then the flowers and finally the candles. However, if we were to light them too many days in advance, the battery would have run out before the wedding. After trying a million different ways to go about it, we finally decided that our coordinator would just have to light the floralytes and plop them in before filling the vases. The Type-A control-freak in me was not thrilled about this solution, but it was the most practical. Sure, I noticed some of floralytes peaking out at the reception, but I honestly doubt anybody else did, and my sanity was way more important in the grand scheme of things. 
MIL and Lil Waterfall were a huge help with the centerpieces. I was beyond overwhelmed getting everything together by myself while Mr. W was away at his bachelor party when they happened to drop by. Upon seeing me on the verge of tears, they insisted on helping me assemble the centerpieces and between the three of us, we were able to finish in a few hours.

Waterfall Wedding Central, W. day minus 5 days

I must say that as stressful and time consuming as our centerpieces were to make, they turned out FABULOUS and saved us a ton of money, making them one of my most worthwhile DIY's. Maybe I'm a bit biased, but I honestly don't think you can tell that they were a) homemade and b) FAKE! We got so many compliments on them from guests, but enough yammering already, let's see some center pieces!

Pictured with the lights on (left) and off (right)

Centerpieces on our wedding day/ guest photo

Are you planning on making your own centerpieces?
*All photos personal unless otherwise specified