How to make simple rustic wooden carved love heart wedding centerpiece boxes for a budget-friendly country-style wedding.

When our daughter got married in a beautiful rural setting in the Cariboo region of British Columbia, the goal was to create a beautiful, rustic, homespun wedding. It was important that every detail be handmade with love and had a story.

The outdoor ceremony was held on the groom's father's acreage where he built a lovely rustic wedding arch. The delicious food was prepared by the groom's mother and grandparents. The wedding cupcakes were made by the groom's sister, and the wedding decor by our daughter, her bridesmaids, Mr. Frugalista, and myself.

Country Wedding Wooden Centerpiece Boxes

When deciding that the wedding centerpiece florals needed to be in a rustic-style container, we headed over to Pinterest for inspiration. When we saw these rustic wooden boxes we fell in love.

Being on a tight budget with the wedding venue located a province away, purchasing the custom boxes from the USA was not an option. So we did what any DIYer would do, made our own version with fence boards! I'll show you how easy and inexpensive they are to make.

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The original plan was to use a woodburning tool to carve the love hearts into the wood. If you are proficient at using a woodburning tool, that would be my first choice.

However, after my first botched attempt, I decided heck no was that happening. There just wasn't enough time with the wedding just two weeks away to master my woodburning skills. So I came up with an alternative way to make the love hearts look like they are carved.

How To Build Rustic Wooden Wedding Centerpiece Boxes

As I mentioned earlier, the wooden boxes are not difficult to build and we had all eighteen assembled in an afternoon. While one cut the fence boards, the other stained each piece of cut wood.

If building the rustic wooden boxes sounds too challenging for lack of time or tools to make them, I found some readymade rustic centerpiece boxes that you may like.

Wooden Wedding Centerpiece Boxes Assembly

The boxes are 5 1/2-inches square and assembled with a simple butt joint. We used a brad nailer to quickly assemble them. The brand new pine fence boards were stained dark walnut to give them a rustic appearance.

Now it's time to add the love hearts to the assembled wooden boxes. Using a wood-burning tool to carve the love hearts would have been ideal. But if your woodburning skills are a novice like mine, I've got you covered.

Adding Carved Love Hearts To The Wedding Centerpiece Boxes

There's a couple of alternative ways to add the love hearts so they look like they've been carved into the wood.

First I went to PicMonkey to create the love heart graphic. Then I saved it as a mirror image to transfer onto the boxes.

You can transfer the love heart graphic onto the boxes one of two ways. Option 1 is with this glossy paper image transfer technique. Option 2 is with this graphite paper image transfer technique. Note that with this one, you don't need to print the graphic in reverse.

Wedding Centerpiece Box Florals

Now that we have the wooden love heart wedding boxes finished, the possibilities for decorating them are endless. Unfortunately, we couldn't use fresh florals for the wedding because the nearest florist shop was over an hour away.

Also, my daughter was insistent on having fresh lavender, and that would not hold up well during transport. So she settled on faux wedding florals with white roses, purple and blue hydrangeas, and lavender. The other wedding decor elements were lace burlap, white lace, and peacock feathers.

Each rustic wooden box was filled with two hydrangeas, one white rose, a loopy lace burlap bow, and a peacock feather. We would have loved to include sprigs of good quality realistic-looking faux lavender as well but they are very expensive.

Instead, we used lavender color floral pearl stamen picks in the centerpiece boxes and saved the faux lavender for the wedding bouquets and boutonnieres.

Wedding Centerpiece Guest Table Number Cards

I was thrilled to find a package of 10 silver table number card holders for a whopping $5. We didn't use the table number cards that came with them because we had another fun idea instead.

I made table number cards with photos of the bride and groom at the corresponding age of the table number. They were quite a hit with guests as they roamed from table to table to view them.

The wooden centerpiece boxes would have looked lost on the long rectangular guest tables. We also made Rustic Wooden Table Risers for the centerpiece boxes for each guest table. We also added mini mason jars filled with tiny pebbles and flameless tealights.

We also made a Rustic 4-Tiered Wedding Cupcake Stand and a unique Rustic Wedding Card Box to look like an old tool caddy.

I'm so glad we were able to make the rustic wedding centerpieces just weeks before the wedding. Apparently, several guests asked the bride and groom who their wedding planner was!

A testament that you can successfully create a beautiful and memorable wedding for under $10K.

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Thanks for stopping by the Interior Frugalista today! I hope you were inspired by these rustic wooden centerpiece boxes.

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