What to do with the leftover centerpieces? What are you guys doing?

I already know that my mom and my aunt will take their centerpieces home. I am hoping that a few others want to take one too. I will bring home the centerpieces that we have on our table and use in our house somehow.

We're keeping a couple of ours, not entirely sure what will happen with the rest. FSIL is getting married next year and I told her if she wanted to use parts of them she could.

I borrowed my vases from another bride so i will return those. We are doing frames with our menus at each table and are going to select photos from the wedding and give them as christmas gifts. Everything else guests can take (no water in vases) or we are donating to the venue - they keep them on hand for brides that need assistance and provide to the area nursing homes.

Before we could say anything to anyone, our guests were taking them home, which we were very thankful for! I think there was one left over, which I took home.

If I don't find a bride who would like them before the wedding, I will let a guest take a centerpiece home. Usually, the guest with the closest birthday at the table gets the centerpiece. That is how our family does it.

Try www.freecycle.org . You can locate your town and everything is free. You can post them and the person that wants them will come pick them up so you don't have to deal with the centerpieces at all. Just tell them what time the wedding is over. People are always looking for wedding items on there.

We plan to have 10 tables and 10 table pieces. So, we are going to put numbers on the back of 10 favors. Towards the end, we will call out numbers and those luck ppl will be able to take the centerpieces home w/ them.

We went to one wedding where they gave away the centerpieces in a hot potato type way, except it was just one round (with a cloth napkin) and whoever had it when the music stopped got the centerpieces. We thought it was really cute. We're giving away our table "numbers" - they're nice double frames - and the DJ said he normally just announces it and gives them away by whomever has the closest birthday to your wedding date at the table.

FH's aunt is making the centerpieces. I'm buying the material from the craft store. Although I know they will be lovely, I plan on giving them away.

I plan on putting a large gift bow under one chair at each table. At the end of the reception, the coordinator will ask everyone to look under their chair for a suprise. The person who sits in the chair with the bow, "wins" the centerpiece!

Keeping them for future friends who get married

We can't gift ours because we are using the hurricane globes our venue is providing, into which we'll put some plastic flowers from Ikea ($0.99 for 8!!!) and water.

Unfortunately, our venue only has tacky small bud vases and salt and pepper shakers. Want to do something fabulous!!! I should probably meet with the coordinator to plan room arrangement so I know how many of these foo-foo doo dads I'm going to need. Your ideas have been great. Anyone here want to loan me YOUR used centerpiece vases??? LOL I can get all the rest of the stuff I need fairly inexpensively, just hate to shell out a couple hundred for vases.

Thanks for all of the helpful comments!!

We gave ours away and people loved them :-) Fruit and all/

If you are using real flowers there will not be enough time to sale them online before they die. We will have approx 20 centerpieces and are renting the vases (b/c it's cheaper than buying them). I'm using real flowers and since my wedding is on mother's day weekend, I'm going to have a special drawing and give them away to the mothers that attend. It will make the mom's feel special and provide an interactive activity between us and our guests! Besides we are leaving for our honeymoon 2 days after our wedding so I won't get to enjoy them. I would recommend doing something like that but just pass out tickets to each guest as they arrive and have a drawing for each centerpiece! Guests will love it!

We are using tin buckets and I want hydrangeas gardenias and maybe roses. The hydrangeas are cheaper as plants and we were going to place them in the buckets and add the other flowrs and decor around it so you can't see the dirt. Then after I figured I would plant them around the house and keep some in the buckets for looks. If not we have animals and I would use the buckets for water troughs and feed pans. Trying to not throw the money away and I need something purty in my yard besides ragweed.