simple mason jar centerpieces and decor

Centerpieces and table settings are things I never really thought about before planning our wedding. (Other things I'd never really thought about: wedding dresses, how kegs work, how far caterers will travel, how many weddings take place in Cooperstown in mid October, and maple syrup shots.) I mean, I know how to set tables and I have put vases of flowers, candles, or fruit bowls on a table to make it prettier. But I'd never before had to think about how to make tables for 70 people look not just pretty, but cohesive. The more I thought about it, the more I found wedding decorations as a whole to be quite daunting.

Enter my new BFF, THE HUMBLE MASON JAR. (The cage thing in the middle is for cards. We had a no-gifts wedding, but my sister got us this because she said we'd get cards anyway. She was right!) Ball mason jars are inexpensive, made in the USA, and available at all hardware (and probably most grocery) stores. They're also perfect for reuse: they are all presently in my kitchen, full of food, right now.

I bought two colors of ribbon (they matched the invitations!) and tied them around the mouths of the mason jars, then put matching (I'm so [color] coordinated!) candles in each one. We had 24 jars all together.

I'm also pretty proud of my camera idea in that picture. While we had two photographers (a professional one, and our friend Michael from the Dazed and Infused blog), I wanted candids. I put a tag on my personal camera saying "Sarah's Camera/Please take lots of photos with this," set it by the "guestbook," and ended up with almost 300 pictures of my friends and family. They were all silly and fun candids--just what I wanted!

Our professionals also took pictures of people taking pictures with it--so meta.

Our table settings looked like this:

Simple, clean, and pretty. The plates were Leafware's palm leaf plates. Disposables, I know, but they're made from fallen palm leaves and are totally biodegradeable, so we still get some green points, right?

Our favors were small bottles of local maple syrup. The husband and I spent a couple hours tying little ribbons onto them.

By the end of the night, the candles burned out completely. Removing the wax so I could reuse the jars was easy: I put the jars in the freezer for about 30 minutes, and the wax tumbled right out. I think I read about that little trick on Martha Stewart's website? You will note the maple syrup bottles in this photo have been opened. That's because a few intrepid wedding guests decided to challenge each other to shots of maple syrup.

Other than a few pumpkins and hay bales outside the venue (thanks, Dad!), the mason jars were our only decorations, but they went far in giving the already pretty venue some extra warmth. (visually, not physically. We had a fireplace for that).

Putting them everywhere drew the place together visually and made it seem like we had a plan. And the plan was mason jars. (Well, and getting married.)