DIY: Rustic Wine Bottle Centerpieces

Because Kevin and I had around 180 guests at our wedding, one of the biggest focal points in our reception space was our table centerpieces (mainly because there were so many tables!  23 tables to be exact).  Even in the initial planning stages I knew our wedding budget wouldn't allow much in the way of table decorations so I figured I'd have to get thrifty. 


Before I break down all of the decorative elements that make up our tablescape, I figured I'd show you the end result first:

Each table was decorated with the following elements:
-White tablecloth
-Old 7' barn board that had holes drilled in them for tea light candles
-3 mismatched wine bottles: 2 of them were decorated with various fabrics like lace, burlap, and twine (most found at Hobby Lobby), and the other was for the table number
-Twigs decorated with paper "leaves"
-Sprigs of pine needles and pinecones
-A "BBQ Survival Kit"

Tablecloths:
First things first: our tablecloths.  Since I didn't want to spend a lot of money renting linens, I actually bought all of our tablecloths second-hand from Craigslist for $150.  I bought 35 tablecloths for that price, so the price per tablecloth was less than $5!  Can't beat that.  Something to consider if you have a tight budget like we did!

Barn Boards:
My mom actually found all of the barn boards while on a walk one day in our hometown.  She noticed them piled up in a run down barn shed and was able to track down the owner of the property who said we could have them for free.  Score!  It took her a few months to get them cleaned up and cut down to size, but they worked perfectly.

Wine Bottles:
The wine bottles were definitely the most time consuming part of the entire centerpiece-making process.  Because of how many tables we had I needed around 80 wine bottles, which I collected through various means (the biggest contributor being a wine bar that is close by!).  Over the course of 3 or 4 months I washed, scrubbed, and decorated all of the bottles with various materials. 

Here they are in their unfinished glory!

For the table numbers, instead of printing them out onto the brown paper like a normal person would, I decided to write them all by hand instead (you know, 'cause I like doing things the hard way).  I still used a font for inspiration called Janda Stylish Script which can be found here, in case you'd like to go the easy route and print them.  Here's a picture of all the completed table numbers:

Each table number bottle was also decorated with a round paper tag that I coffee-stained and stamped with a little bird (my way of incorporating our nature theme in another interesting form).  The nice part about using this little stamp was that I could also include it in other wedding decorations to help tie everything together (like the cupcake toppers I made!  You can find that post here.)  The round tags were purchased from Office Depot and the little bird stamp was found here.

Decorated Twigs:
I had always wanted to put something into the wine bottles that would make the centerpieces taller and add more visual interest.  That's where the tree branches came in.  Originally I was just going to leave them un-decorated, but after seeing this image on Pinterest I thought adding the paper leaves would make it look a bit more interesting.  I bought a bunch of different patterned navy and Kraft papers, and used  this handy-dandy leaf-shaped paper punch that I found at my local Jo-Ann's to cut out all the leaf shapes (which was a God-send since there was NO way I was going to cut them out with a scissors!).

This little hand-punch saved my sanity.

Armed with hot glue guns, my sister, mom and I had a little branch-decorating party in my parents basement and had the project completed in just a few hours.


"BBQ Survival Kit"
And last but not least, to top off our tablescape we had a "BBQ Survival Kit" put at everyone's place setting which included wet naps, disposable wooden silverware, and a paper napkin - everything you would need for a messy BBQ dinner!  The paper bags and wooden silverware were bought in bulk online and the napkins were found at IKEA.  My co-worker who designed our save-the-dates and wedding invitations also did the art for the sticker that was put on the front of the bag.

And there you have it!  I feel like the end result more than exceeded my expectations, and I'm so happy with how they turned out.  For around $50 we were able to create unique centerpieces that were not only beautiful but also used recycled and repurposed materials.  That's a win in my book.