Centerpieces are easy as 1-2-3

Today I’m pivoting from my usual wedding chatter to focus on another summer season event: graduation. 

My nephew is somehow old enough to be graduating high school - not sure how this is possible, as I am certain I just graduated a few years ago, right…???  Apparently how old I am and how old I feel do not quite match up. Anyways…I digress.

When my sister-in-law mentioned a dual graduation party for my nephew and his girlfriend, I was all over it. With weddings, my favorite design moment comes with the centerpieces and graduations are no exception. I jumped at the centerpiece opportunity. These centerpieces are easy to create.

Materials Used:

• Metallic wrapping paper

• 2x4 wood cut into 1 foot pieces

• Cardstock

• Photos

• Photo Sticks

• Stickers

There are a few things I like to prioritize when working to create centerpieces:

1. Personal

2. Portable

3. Easy to Duplicate

Make it Personal

I know some people love luxurious over-the-top centerpieces, but for me they feel too cookie cutter. Graduations like weddings are very personal. It’s a moment in time that those getting married or graduating will remember forever. Instead of making a centerpiece that looks like every other wedding (or graduation) centerpiece, find a way to make it personal. Add photos or elements that reflect the interest of the couple or graduate. 

For my wedding, we had very personal centerpieces. Each table included photos that included moments in time from myself and my husband with those sitting at the table. It was one of my favorite design elements of our wedding!

For the graduation, I created centerpieces that included 3 photo spots (one of my nephew, one of his girlfriend, and one of them together). I also included stickers that reflected their interests (camping, music, cooking, gaming, etc.

Make it Portable

For the graduation party, we’ll be driving 6 hours to Central Oregon and for most weddings some centerpiece travel is also likely (even if it’s just down the road). It’s important to make sure the centerpieces you create can be broken down for transport. The centerpieces I made can easily have the photo holders removed, so the blocks can be stacked on top of eachother. To protect the photos during transport, pot them in a hard container (like tupperware) to prevent scratching, folding, and wrinkling. 

All the centerpieces can be packed into a storage box to be loaded into the car and carried easily to the event location.

Make it Duplicatable

When making centerpieces, you want to make sure you can easily duplicate them. While centerpieces don’t have to be exactly the same, you will likely want some similarity amongst them. To make a centerpiece easy to duplicate, keep the same elements for each centerpiece. If you want a little variation, change a minor detail such as the color, photos, or a few flowers. For the graduation the colors are blue, silver, and red. I used each of those colors on the base and varied the stickers. The photos on each will also be different. You don’t want to vary centerpieces too much, as it will look messy or incohesive. To keep it from looking too wild for the graduation centerpieces, the base size, amount of photos, and styling will be the same for each.

For weddings duplicative centerpieces are especially important, if you’re having someone else put together your centerpieces (which I strongly suggest as you’ll be much too busy on the wedding day to put them together yourself). A couple ideas to make duplicating easy? Create a sample centerpiece of how you want it to look, then leave that example for others to reference or take a photo of the centerpiece for people to reference

I would put a picture of my high school graduation, but I literally don’t have one. My parents took zero photos of my graduation. The only one I had was one my college roommate’s parents took of us from really far away and I lost it, so see…it really is like I never graduated and am still young because there’s no photographic evidence my high school graduation ever happened!

Happy grad season!

~Amanda Jean