Tabletops and the Designers Behind Them

"Flowers are like music:There are only so many notes, but infinite ways to combine them to come up with something different," says Jeff Johnson, co-owner of the floral and event-design company Square Root, based in Santa Ana,California.These infinite possibilities provide one of the greatest challenges-and most rewarding payoffs-of designing tabletops for an elegant wedding reception.

"It's no longer just about show and circumstance," says Scott Corridan, owner and principal designer of Santa Barbara's Corridan and Company Design Studios. "Couples are making their weddings very individualized, including elements that capture the couple's own quirky traits."

For Christina Sands and her husband, Larry, using some of their own unusual vases for their table centerpieces helped personalize their reception tables."We wanted simple, classic elegance, but with an edge," says Christina, whose ceremony and reception took place at the St. Regis Hotel in Dana Point, California.

The couple owned several vases made by Chrome Hearts, a luxury lifestyle company, and were fortunate enough to be good friends with the owners of the company, who agreed to lend them enough extras for all the guest tables. Corridan filled each vase with dozens of blackmagic roses, snipping the stems so the flowers sat at the top like a globe, showing off both the petals and the vases.

Corridan kept the rest of the table simple, with white satin tablecloths and clusters of white votive candles."They weren't just floral centerpieces," says Christina."They were a little bit of us." Square Root's Johnson also loves "the power of just one flower. Instead of having 15 different elements, I love something simple like a bowl with 50 peonies in it-it's dramatic and striking in its simplicity."

For simplicity with a twist, Johnson might mix various tones of a single color when arranging flowers, linens, and other tabletop elements.The August wedding of Houstonians Laura Ebeling and Ryan Zehl played off the bride's passion for pink. Each centerpiece was built around a tall, glass vase, with hot-pink orchids immersed in the body of the cylinder; at the top and bottom of the vase were masses of flowers in all shades of pink, from the palest cream to vibrant magentas. "To enhance the feel of a beach destination wedding, we had tons of seashells and sand and cream candles surrounding the centerpieces." says Laura, whose ceremony and reception took place at Pelican Hill in Newport Beach, California.

Fusing disparate elements can create a more dramatic look. "We'll put together colors that you might think wouldn't blend, such as a deep plum or port wine mixed with a bright fuschia and then softened with a li me green," says Johnson. "It creates a lot of contrast, and the flowers really 'pop.'" Malou Corrigan, co-owner of Miami Beach's Pistils and Petals, says that while some couples opt for soft traditional colors, she's also seeing many who "are not afraid to use color such as hot pinks, bright oranges, and all shades of green." Especially popular are proteas and other tropical flowers indigenous to...