How to Incorporate Candles into Your Centerpieces

It’s your big day: We’ve reached sundown, the guests have settled into their tables, and now you want a warm, settled environment where everyone can celebrate and feel their most comfortable. Lighting at a wedding can make-or-break a beautiful event, and candles scream romance. Embracing candles for your wedding is a great way to enhance your centerpieces, because you have a plethora of options. From large, over-the-top candelabras surrounded by enormous flower arrangements to the most gentle of tea lights, you and your guests will light up the evening with these stunning wedding candle centerpiece options.

Below, we’ve gathered some options for ways to incorporate your candles into your centerpieces.

Candelabras

Tall, romantic candelabras can make a dramatic statement for a wedding, with the branched candle holders serving as both light sources and a decor sense. A tall candelabra with thick candles and ivy surrounding them on the ends of each table can create a sense of elegance, while shorter candelabras with thin candles surrounded by lush flower arrangements cascading down can create a stunning wedding table.

Candle Tip: Make sure your candelabras are either tower over the tables or are lower than your guests’ eyelines—you don’t want to ruin the vibe because the guests can’t see each other over your beautiful wedding centerpieces!

Electric Candles

A flameless, LED or battery-powered candle can really take a lot of anxiety out of your wedding without sacrificing a mood-setting vibe. Plus, it’s no mess—no one in the wedding party really wants to be scraping wax off of linens at the end of the evening, and this is a guaranteed way to make sure that’s avoided. Safe, mess-free, and still beautiful? That’s all we can ask for.

Lantern Candles

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Rustic weddings and lanterns are just as destined as you and your significant other, surrounded by lush greenery in a centerpiece, or even on their own, lantern candles can be beautiful. Electric candles would work great here, too—that way you don’t have to worry about a hot piece of metal burning a guest passing their plate.

Candle Tip: The lanterns can serve a dual-purpose: Use them to light your aisleway during a sunset ceremony, and have them make a second appearance in your centerpieces.

Colored Candles

Who says your candles can’t match your wedding colors? Integrate your wedding colors here in an imaginative manner—white candles can be for any day. If you’re looking to make the “something blue” a part of your big day, a light, light blue candle that can appear white is a clever option. For an even more innovative option, go with neutral hued flowers, and let the candles represent your wedding colors on the big day. A white flower next to a beautiful array of violets will let the purple tone on your wedding table really sing.

Floating Candles

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Okay, for those who are looking to keep their anxiety down but also really love the look of a lit flame vs. an electric one, floating candles are exactly where you want to be when choosing wedding decor. Candles suspended in water can keep the worries away while also being an inexpensive and beautiful way to decorate. Tea candles in simple vases with just water are a beautifully minimalistic way to decorate, or adding tree branches or your wedding flowers into tall votives with the candles atop can also be a wonderful accent to your centerpieces.

Different Votives and Vases

It’s not just the style of candle that matters—the vessel you use to hold the candles matters, too. While there’s nothing quite as beautiful as a simple candle in a simple, sleek votive, like a pillar candle, repurposing unconventional items will really personalize your event. Love craft beer? Your favorite types of beer bottles can be used as holders for tall candlesticks. Looking to bring the outdoors inside? Terrariums filled with moss or sand can make the woods for you. Candle holders made out of copper and granite in geometric shapes instead of glass are perfect for a modern, minimalistic wedding.

Against the entire concept of vases and votives in general? A plate matching the chargers for your wedding, adorned with flowers and mis-matched candle heights can feel charming with the rest of your wedding decor.

Candlesticks

Candlesticks can feel very Beauty and the Beast—sophisticated, dramatic, glamorous. Simple gold or silver candlesticks can make the most minimal of floral arrangements look romantic, while surrounding tall, thin candles with bright, vibrant florals can make a summer wedding even more lively and vivacious. Using candlesticks of differing heights in your centerpieces, surrounded by gorgeous greenery, will let you feel like you’ve created an intimate, modern ambiance.