600 Guest Wedding to decorate

DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN! No advice here but good luck girl!

Well, I'm not Sicilian but I can fake it

We are from Cassino, just south of Rome--home of the Benedictine abbey Montecassino. Almost almost all my mom's family stayed behind when she came here in the 1950s. I have a ton of cousins left and visited with them this past spring and we plan to return next spring.

We went to Easter mass in the church my parents were married almost 70 years ago!

Let us know how we can help -- baci e bracci e tante felicita!

@gymrat Yeah I hear that a lot. I think the cost of living is just way low in our area!!!! Everyone keeps throwing out numbers of guest with 150 and they spend 30,000 and I cant even imagine that. I have the DJ, venue, photographer, caterer, and church and I have only spent about 13,000.

Nonna thats amazing! Such a beautiful church! Its amazing to be able to visit family over there. We were planning to visit next year but it looks like they are coming here so we will probably go in 2019! But grazie mille!

@MrsWrs, the weddings I have been to in Italy start by serenading the bride the night before the wedding, followed by food and drink for everyone that goes late in to the night.

The next morning the entire village walks the bride and groom to church for the wedding mass. Then invited guests attend a very extensive, multi course lunch at a hotel restaurant. (Sounds tiered, I know).

After many hours of that, everyone, including the whole town, is invited back to the home of the parents for more food (catered), drink and dancing, again til very late in to the night or early the next morning.

Yay big weddings. I'm in the same ballpark as you with a huge guest count and a lot of tables to decorate.

For my winter/Christmas wedding, I bought dollar store vases, mini "fairy" lights from Amazon, and FH's family and I spent a couple months collecting pinecones that I dried and treated (coming up on a year of engagement, so we had a lot of time). About 75% of the centerpieces are now done. We wrapped the lights in a spiral and then put them in the vase and filled the vases with the pinecones and red berry sprays from Hobby Lobby. About $2/centerpiece. They are small but sweet. I second whatever someone said about checking with FH's family. I feel like for a big Italian wedding they are going to expect more glitz and glam than a cheap DIY might give you. But that's probably going to depend on the individual family.

edit: I'm kinda encouraged by the amount of people that aren't totally laying in to you. It is possible, especially when it is culturally expected, to host well for a lot of people for not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many people just don't realize how much variance there is in different parts of the country for prices, and also for expectations on what to serve.

Hopefully you decided to get help . Way to many tables to cut corners.

I'm sorry for the judgemental and unhelpful comments filling your thread about a real issue. They are irritating for me to read so I can only imagine how you feel. We built and stained boxes for our centerpieces then brought them to a florist to fill. We only had 18 boxes to make and even that was a huge pain and took up a lot of space. Just start calling around to florists and decorators!! My friend had a decorator for her 400 guest wedding and she said it was the best investment they made for their wedding.

Dollar store vases/bowls with a mirror underneath possiblity. Petals around and fake beads/stones in the bottom with tea lights floating inside and maybe votives around. Classy, simple, elegant. Or talk to your planner/DOC

600 guests! Sounds like your wedding is going to be a blast!

As for centerpieces if you're not hung up on the idea of florals, you can do a set a various sized cylinder vases with floating candles and colored water beads. And maybe throw some fake flower petals on the table for a little added flair. You can get all these things on sites like oriental trading in bulk for relatively cheap. I priced out about how much all that would be for 75 tables and got $36 so right around your budget. The down side is you and whoever is helping you out will have to put it all together and transport it all.

Girl if you have 75 tables to decorated and 600 guests and you don't want to spend $ on centerpieces? For a big wedding like that have a professional florist to do the job, to be honest if you can pay for 600 people you can find a way to pay for the florist, believe me you won't regret and takes a lot off from your shoulders Good luck !!!

........ oh. my. goodness.

Well...I'm assuming you know that a wedding of that size doesn't come cheap...if you have a Hobby Lobby around, they have half off sales on just about everything from time-to-time. Glass vases, flowers, ect. I bought all my lanterns for my centerpieces for $1.50, bought fairy lights to fill them, and made a book box for each one to sit on from library throw a ways for $1 a piece. Came to about $7 each after buying batteries for the fairy lights. It's possible to do pretty and cheap.

Honey, I would vomit if I had to walk down the aisle with 600 people watching me. I'm nervous about the 40 guests I have!

I found lanterns at Walmart for $10 a piece. Nice ones. But that's still $750 plus tax. All I can say is good luck

I would look into rental companies. Maybe like a large candelabra or something? There's no way I would want to buy, transport, store or try to resell lanterns, etc. And that many floral centerpieces would be $$$. Have you checked with your venue to see if they have anything? Even tealight holders or smaller accents for that many tables could really add up.

I looked into renting centerpieces and décor but for my small wedding (60 guest @ 7 tables), it wasn't worth it. I think it definitely would be for an event as large as your wedding.

Lost me at 600!! Lmbo!!!

Now that I got my thoughts together,,,Pinterest is where I got mine.

Geez, I think someone got up on the wrong side of the bed, AS USUAL!!!

OP, don't even listen to the naysayers, just do what you are planning to do, which is the norm in your town/culture. If someone feels they are only a "number" and cuts you off because of that, then they were not a very good friend anyway. If what you were planning were NOT the norm where you are from, then I would worry, but you are fine, some people on here are just Negative Nelly's more than 75% of the time and you will figure out who those people are and hopefully learn to tune them out soon.

I think the ONLY way to make this work and save your sanity, is to talk to a couple of different florists ASAP and get some options from them. I am sure they have had this same issue with other brides in your area, so I bet they have tons of ideas already.

I, for one, cannot wait to see your BAM!!!

Also, I saw a PP about sets of 3 cylinder/taper vases, and I wanted to let you know that if you go that route, Ikea has them for only $14.99 a set, which is half the price of the one posted earlier. I have them, and they are GREAT quality!!

Wowza that's a lot! I would go with something easy and simple for that many tables!