I love weddings and I equally love to plan smaller, more casual and intimate affairs. When our clients approached us with their décor ideas for a brown and green shower, we ran with it and really made every penny go as far as we could. With a little preparation, creativity, and persistence, you can come up with equally beautiful and affordable tablescapes for your next event. I wanted to share with you where we purchased all of our vases, crafting items & supplies. I also wanted to give you a step-by-step tutorial on how we pulled all these small details together which I’ll follow up with tomorrow.

But first, our shopping list:

8 chunky square votive candle holders
$1.97 ea, Wal-Mart

5 Tall, thin vases
$1 ea, The Dollar Store

3 Tall and chunky mosaic vases
$1 ea, The Dollar Store

4 round, traditional vases (not pictured)
1 ea, The Dollar Store

4 packages (two per pack) of 7 inch & 9 inch tissue “bells” (for the kitschy factor!)
$1 ea, The Dollar Store

6 packages of tissue paper in brown, green & hot pink (8 sheets per pack)
$2.29, Wal-Mart

3 packages of stick-on crystal embellishments
$2.29 ea, Martha Stewart Crafts

3 Rolls of ribbon (thick brown, brown/white polka dot, thin green)
$2.97 ea, Wal-Mart

1 Roll of cooking twine
Free, because we don’t cook!

80 stems of fresh assorted mini gerbera daisies
$79.80 (with overnight international shipping!) farmstogo.com

Grand Total: $135 (give or take some cents)

Items used but already owned by us:
Stampin’ Up! Engagement Stamp Set with rubber stamps and ink pads
Cardstock for tags
Hole puncher
Floral wire
Wire Cutter
Circular paper cutter
Fabric glue
Tealights

Not bad, right? The key to beautiful and affordable décor is to shop around for the best bargain. I recommend looking in the stores we’ve mentioned, plus places like Home Goods, The Christmas Tree Shops, Ocean State Job Lot, Big Lots, Marshalls, TJ Maxx, Target, Michaels, Joann Fabrics, and your local discount store. These are all wonderful resources and you can sometimes find the “find of a lifetime!”

Shopping for discounted flowers can also be really difficult. To be sure that you order the correct amount of flowers, do a trial run of your centerpiece beforehand. It’s always good to have some extra blooms on hand, as the shipping process tends to eliminate a few beauties from the bunch. Also, if you are ordering the flowers yourself, make sure they are delivered no more than two days before your event (unless otherwise specified by the floral company). You want to make sure that the flowers you’ve chosen are at the peak of their blooming cycle and are as fresh as can be (no one likes half-dead flowers!) If your floral budget is limited you can do what we did – tie the blooms together to mimic a bouquet. I think it’s just as elegant as a lush and full arrangement.

Tomorrow I’ll provide you with some tutorials on how to take all the ingredients we’ve purchased and turn them into our décor!