Things you never knew you needed to know about centerpieces

When I read various DIY (do-it-yourself) and indie-bride blogs, I don't feel as though we're doing a lot of DIY stuff for our wedding; in fact, I feel like we could be doing more.  But, considering more closely at how much DIY we've seen at family and friends weddings, and what it FEELS like doing what we ARE doing, perhaps we ARE doing quite a lot!  Some projects are things that I found online, but for most we are just winging it.   What has been most challenging about that is knowing how much of any supply to purchase, since I haven't had a "recipe" to follow.  Though, come to think of it, I probably could have looked some of this stuff up, but who knows where to even start?

So, I wanted to post some of the "amounts" for our centerpieces we discovered through trial and error...hoping that someone who needs this same information will figure out what to Google to find it on our little blog.  Also a list of random things I never thought I needed to know, but now I do!

By the way, our centerpieces are half-gallon canning jars with candles and glass rocks inside, tied with a ribbon, and placed on a mirror.  Cute and rustic!  Maybe I'll post a picture tonight.

• First, where do you get half-gallon canning jars? --> Ace Hardware, but you can also order them from Amazon.
• What size candle do you put in a half-gallon canning jar?  -->  Not a 9" candle, I can tell you that!  We did a (very) rough measurement of a half-gallon jar by holding up an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper next to it, and estimiated the thing was 10" tall.  So, a 9" candle, right?  WRONG!  I guess it's something about the bottom of the jar, but the 9" candle stuck way out the top.  So, using a blow torch and our sharpest kitchen knife, we sliced 3" off of each candle.  Those chunks of wax will be made into future candles. It turns out that a 6" candle is perfect.  We are using 2" pillars - 3" would not fit into the mouth of the jar.  I suppose you could use a taper, but I'm not sure how to get it to stand up.  Also, FYI, we purchased our candles from NJ Candle.  The candles are American-made and local(ish) to us, and quite inexpensive.  They have pretty much any size and color candle you would want.  The turnaround was not stunningly fast but was certainly adequate.
• How many glass stones do you need for a half-gallon canning jar?  So the candle will stand up properly, you want the stones to fill the jar at least one-third of the way.  We went almost half.  We initially ordered 1lb bags of glass stones (which is about 1.25 cups) from Wholesalers USA, located in Frederick, MD, who were super quick and helpful.  I assumed that a 1lb bag per jar would work fine, but we really ended up needing close to 2 bags per jar.  So, we ended up purchasing the rest from Michael's.  The Wholesalers USA cost was a little less per bag, but just about evened out with shipping.  If you were able to do a pick up (which they allow), you would save around 50 cents per bag, which would add up over 20-40 lbs.
• What size mirror should I put a half-gallon jar on?  We actually did pretty good, here.  We ordered 9" mirrors from A.C Moore, which actually ended up being cheaper than buying from any store, even with shipping.  I think you have a little more flexibility with mirrors, and could go bigger or smaller, depending on your preferences.