Wedding decoration ideas in the Ikea catalog
I don’t know about anyone else, but the Ikea catalog that just seems to magically arrive without you’re doing anything is massively dangerous for me. There are always so many thinks you can see in your own home, am I right? Anyway, as I thumbed through every page, I saw various possibilities for a budget wedding. Follow me inside the catalog…
On page 334 and 335 of the catalog is Ikea’s vase offerings. All of them are really nice, with some lovely colors, but there are a few I’d really like to point you toward. I really like the BLOMSTER bowl, a glass, shallow bowl. They’re $9.99 each and can easily be filled with water to hold floating tea lights or candles and a few blossoms.
On the same page, at the end of that top row is the SNARTIG (sorry, I have no umlauts) vase. This vase has a narrow mouth, so you can’t have too many flowers in it, but picture it with some food coloring-dyed water (matching your colors, of course, with a white Casablanca lily or a similarly thin-stemmed, big blooming flower. Nice, huh? This vase is only 79 cents each.
Below it, in the middle of the second row, is also called a BLOMSTER vase, but this one is a bit cheaper at $3.99, with a small mouth, but a very round, almost apple like shape. I’d say you should also go with some big bloom flowers for this vase, also — maybe a hydrangea or even a fully matured rose bloom. The flowers in this picture are also very nice; I think those are baby roses, but I could be wrong.
Next to that picture is the BLADET bowl, which is $12.99. It’s a bowl, so you’ll have no trouble putting things in it. The arrangement here is interesting — they appear to be flowering roots in rocks — but I would suggest something a little more flashy if you want it to be a reception centerpiece. Maybe colored water, maybe colored rocks? Shoot, you could even put a stack of Granny Smith apples or plums in there, depending on your color.
In the bottom row, at both ends, are more traditional vases. The BLADET vase is the most expensive of the bunch at $14.99, and its apparently 11 inches tall, which is not bad at all. There are so many possibilities for a vase like this.
Many possibilities for a vase like the second one that caught my eye — the VASEN vase. Its 8 inches tall, and costs $1.49 each. I think this one might be the best deal of the bunch, really. It’s got that interesting hour-glass shape and a wide mouth. And its cheap!
A couple pages over is Ikea’s candle page. I really liked this section too and I think there are so many possibilities with these candle holders — especially when you combine them with the vases. 
The KARABODA lantern is really nice. It’s made of glass and steel, is 11 inches tall and goes for $2.99 each. I like the texturing on the outside. However, I wonder if the handle on top gets hot?
The STOCKHOLM candelabra is really nice. It’s pricey at $39.99, so maybe this would be something nice to decorate the cake table or sign-in table with. If you do use this candelabra, I think it would be very easy to decorate the foot of it with some flowers.
Check out the HALLARE tealight holder. I know that there are some who like the idea of the long guest tables that hold many on both sides of the table, rather than the round tables that have been in fashion for so long. A tealight set up like these would be ideal for ambiance along each side of the table. This tealight holder is 22 inches long. I can also see it being used on a round table, maybe 3 of them in a triangle, but with all the stuff put on a round table, there may not be enough room.
Next to the tealights is the GALEJ candleholder. I really like these. They’re 9 inches tall and are $3.99 each. You can simply add a tealight with your color, or maybe add a blossom of some kind for a little pizzazz — I think I’ve seen a gerber daisy used with a candle holder like this one.
My mom’s last hurrah is golden
When my mom passed, I was finally free to tell my siblings that I’d helped my mom with a wedding in February while she was sick.
And even though we were all grieving, we giggled at my mom’s audacity and subterfuge — both me and my aunt and uncle (who also helped) had managed to keep the small wedding under wraps. Not only that, my mom was supposed to be sick but she’d managed to do flowers for a wedding!? Oh, mommy.
The wedding, she told me, was very small, with the ceremony at St. Elizabeth’s in Rowland Heights (a church we’re very familiar with). The aisle is short, so not a lot of draping was needed. And since Catholic churches tend to like sparse decorations, it was pretty simple.
Honestly, I’m not even sure how my mom did it all when she was well. Four of us cleaned the roses and star-gazers for my mom’s funeral flowers and we were exhausted. How my mom put together an arrangement like the one above when she was sick is beyond me. But she really loved flowers, and I know she really loved making things extra fancy — check out those gold-painted palms in the back of the arrangement.
These appear to be bridesmaid bouquets of yellow roses and calla lilies. My mom also loved accessories like gold rope. It gives it some extra oomph. It makes things just a little more ornate, and is perfect for a golden anniversary celebration.
The offering bouquet.
The reception was nearby at the Royal Vista Golf Club. The place was unfamiliar, but my mom told me I’d been here before. The place was a pleasant surprise — lots of character. The draping and lights from the ceiling, however, comes with the place and was not my doing.
The cake table, appropriately golden. I’m really glad I got a final shot of my mom decorating a cake — those were typically the shots I could take without her scolding me for taking pictures of her. As I mentioned at her funeral, she often scolded me for wasting pictures on her while we worked. But I don’t regret it one bit.
My mom loved big arrangements and really loved incorporating fruit. While looking for pictures of her for a slideshow, we found my old 18th birthday photos — every arrangement had all sorts of exotic flowers and fruit. It was awesome. If you can’t tell, that would be bananas, grapes, mangoes and a pineapple in that buffet arrangement.
The party was a small one — maybe 15 tables? My uncle and aunt did most of the heavy lifting on and off the tables, while I took care of draping the tables. The seat covers, however, belong to the site and are not ours. If my mom had contracted seat covers, she probably would have needed my siblings’ help.
The head table, I think, had enough room for the couple and their kids. That backdrop was done on the fly — initially it was just the tulle and lights, but I had some extra gold organza and my mom wanted me to dress it up a bit. It turned out well.
My mom really loved flowers and plants. She could make anything grow. In fact, she planted some really gorgeous palm, guava, calamansi and ti leaf trees in her yard and they are thriving, as are all her other myriad plants. In fact, at our old house, we used to joke that her green thumb kept making one banana tree grow, even though she kept trying to kill it.
My mom also really loved decorating weddings. From time to time, we grumbled about some of the people we had to deal with (not all bridezillas!), but I think my mom just really loved seeing everything coming together.
Aw, mom. Weddings won’t be the same without you.
