Upcycled Wedding Centerpieces

It’s time for another Wedding Wednesday installment of The Hump Day How-To! You’ve already heard about my inexpensive DIY wedding and seen my burlap table runners and fabric flower bouquets, but today is all about our wedding centerpieces. Between real life and Pinterest, I have seen some seriously beautiful (and seriously extravagant) floral centerpieces. Though gorgeous, that’s not really my scene. They’re pricey, the flowers die, and I wanted something easy, cheap, and a little bit rustic. Eventually, I settled on using a cluster of recycled bottles for each table centerpiece.

© Kat/Eye StudiosOur wedding colors were monochromatic blues, which made collecting all of the blue bottles the hardest part of this project. About two weeks before the wedding, my husband and I had fifty bottles soaking in our spare bathroom and were wishing we had more blue ones. I said, “I wish we could just have a blue bottle party where everyone brings Riesling, Pinnacle Vodka, and Bud Light Platinum.” Doh!! It was too late for us, but hopefully you’ll read this in time! Before you get started, figure out how many bottles you think you’ll need, then add about 15 (just in case). We wanted 3-5 on each table, plus some spread throughout the venue (like on the fireplace, at the bar, by the desserts, etc.). For our wedding, my goal ended up being 100 bottles. We searched for blue (any color), clear, and frosted bottles. I researched what types of bottles were blue, so I knew what to ask for.

How to Collect Your Bottles:
1. Drink a lot and have friends who do the same.
2. Tell everyone you know. Caitlynn and her mom brought over a bunch of bottles and my aunt told her coworkers and got some really cool big wine bottles.
3. Don’t be afraid to ask party hosts or complete strangers. I went to a wine and painting night with friends and asked the instructor if I could dig through the recycling. #noregrets!
4. Make friends with a bartender. In this case, I was the bartender, but unfortunately we switched to a non-blue brand of Riesling a few months before the wedding.
5. Throw a “____ Bottle Party.” We missed the boat on this one, but it would have been an easy way to collect a lot of blue bottles at one time!

When you’ve begun collecting the bottles, rinse them out with warm soapy water (do this ASAP or they might start getting mold) and peel off the label. Unfortunately, different companies use different types of labels, so it may take some trial and error to remove them. For paper labels, we were usually able to remove them by soaking them in warm water and peeling the label off. If it was a little tougher, we used steel wool. Plastic labels usually peeled off easier, but required the use of Goo-Gone to get the sticky residue off. I highly recommend doing the label removing steps along the way — you do not want to spend a whole day doing it like we did. If a label won’t come off, think about how you could cover it up. We decorated our bottles with lace and twine, so a large cut of lace could totally cover a rogue label.

When your bottles are clean, it’s time to decorate them! We did this the morning of our wedding, when we had a big group helping us set up. My bridesmaids and I pre-cut strips of blue ribbon, twine, and lace. We went around and put 3-5 bottles on each table, making sure to split up the blue ones. We also put bottles on the bar, fireplace, dessert table, and outdoor cocktail tables. After splitting up the bottles, we got to the bedazzling and wrapped some bottles with ribbon, twine, and lace. For the finishing touch, we used single stems of baby’s breath that my mom picked up from the grocery store. She spent about $30 on flowers, and we had a ton!

© Kat/Eye StudiosIn the picture above, you can see our finished product. Our upcycled bottles include a frosted bottle from Coconut Jack rum, clear bottle from Smirnoff Ice, dark blue wine bottle, and a light blue Bombay Sapphire Gin bottle. I was so pleased with the way everything turned out! We were planning on recycling most of the bottles after the wedding, but one of my bridesmaids actually took about 25 of the blue bottles home and has them on top of her kitchen cabinets right now. Super cute!

Sadly, alcohol bottles come in limited colors, but there are lots of clear bottles which would work for any color scheme. We lucked out with our blue wedding, but a green wedding would have had a lot of bottle choices too! The bottles are essentially free, so the only cost is the ribbon, lace, and flowers. These upcycled centerpieces are so cheap and so pretty!

What did you use for your wedding centerpieces?