DIY centerpieces are always a chance to get creative whether it’s for a wedding, family dinner, birthday party, or any other event. One way to spruce up your centerpiece and add more meaning is to create a photo centerpiece complete with a special memory.

Capture has been helping people preserve their memories and create lasting keepsakes for over 20 years, which is why we’re here to help you create a fantastic photo centerpiece with tons of great ideas. 

Read on to learn why table centerpieces are important, creative ways to incorporate photos into your party centerpieces, 10 great ideas to inspire you, and tips for choosing the right photos for any event. 

Jump to:

• The Importance of Personalized Decor in Celebrating Life's Moments
• Creative Ways to Use Photos as Centerpieces
• 10 Ideas of Photo Centerpieces
• Integrating Technology in Photo Centerpieces
• Tips for Choosing the Right Photos and Accessories

The Importance of Personalized Decor in Celebrating Life's Moments

Party decorations and wedding decor help set the mood, creating an atmosphere of love, celebration, and lasting memories. While traditional floral centerpieces are great, adding Polaroid pictures and photo prints promotes personalization and meaning.

Plus, a photo of a previous gathering or event can spark conversations and nostalgia that ensure everyone has a good time. This creates emotional bonds and new memories while reminiscing over old ones. The picture centerpiece also becomes a keepsake or party favor with meaning and can even double as a father of the bride gift. 

Ultimately, photo party centerpieces add to the overall aesthetic and create an ambiance of memories, emotional connections, and love. It will be something the couple and family will look back on when celebrating their 20 year anniversary gift and beyond. 

However, you should not just pick any random photo. Instead, read out creative ideas for matching the perfect photo to the event. 

Creative Ways to Use Photos as Centerpieces

It’s important to create a thematic aesthetic with photo cutouts and the table decor you select. There are a couple of ways to do this. 

One way to do so is to choose photos that match the party or wedding flower arrangements, table runners, tablecloth color, greenery, and other decorations. For example, if the wedding flower centerpieces include lots of blue hydrangeas, you can choose family photos where people wear similar blue, feature the sky or ocean, and other matching colors. 

Another option is to choose photos for the centerpiece that can have specific meanings related to the event. For example, for a wedding table centerpiece, the photos can document the journey between the bride and groom. This can create a romantic and sentimental vibe for every table setting. 

Or, for a graduation party, the custom photos could have the graduate’s childhood leading from birth all the way to the celebration. Use your creativity to come up with personalized photo arrangements and memorable centerpiece ideas that match the vibe you want to create. Keep reading for some party and wedding centerpiece ideas that include photos! You can use these ideas as inspiration whether you are making a DIY project or want to buy family photo table décor and custom picture centerpieces. 

10 Ideas of Photo Centerpieces

 1. Family Tree Photo Display for Family Reunions

If you’re celebrating a family reunion or another family gathering, having picture holders that create a family tree can be great. You can use photo pictures of each individual family member, connecting everyone with branches. It can even be fun to have extra room and each year at the reunion you add the new members as a family! 

There are some great options for sale on Amazon and Walmart, but you also create your own family tree photo display on cardstock or out of standard picture frames. Making your own is especially important if your family doesn’t fit into the ones you can buy.

2. Wedding Day Memories: A Romantic Photo Centerpiece

A store-bought or DIY wedding photo centerpiece can be a very romantic addition to any wedding reception. You can even add a personalized message and include the most romantic photos of the bride and groom. 

There are some photo cubes with 4 photos, one on each side, that can double as a vase. That means you can still add custom flowers or table numbers while adding a romantic ambiance with photos. This makes for meaningful wedding photo decorations that match the specific aesthetic of the event. 

3. Birthday Milestones: A Journey in Pictures

For birthday custom picture centerpieces, including favorite memories of the person whose birthday you’re celebrating can be a great way to spark nostalgic memories and conversations. Try organizing photos chronologically so that one table will have infant pictures while they get closer and closer to this current birthday. Then, the last centerpiece can be filled with photos from the birthday celebration itself!  

4. Anniversary Celebration: Through the Years in Photos

DIY photo centerpiece projects make great 30 year anniversary gifts and can show the years of love and marriage through precious photographs. If possible, you can include photos starting with their wedding date and go through the years all the way until the current celebration. You can even add the number of the anniversary, creating a romantic and lasting gift. 

5. Baby's First Year: A Photo Timeline Centerpiece

The first year of a baby’s life is hectic and stressful for parents, but having a table topper or centerpiece with all the photos of the good times can make it all worthwhile. It also becomes something the baby will cherish when they are older. Try to find a photo frame or centerpiece that matches the gender of the baby and other decorations of the 1-year birthday. 

6. Graduation: A Journey of Academic Achievements in Photos

As we mentioned before, you can have graduation centerpieces that include memories leading up to the special moment. You can buy great cap and gown centerpieces online that double as photo frames, but you can also buy cardstock, stickers, and frames from the dollar store to make your own special centerpieces. Then, you just need to select and insert the photos! 

7. Travel Memories: A Worldly Photo Centerpiece

Regardless of the celebration, it can be good to choose a theme. One great theme is travel, particularly if you’re celebrating someone’s birthday, anniversary, or wedding who loves to go to other places. 

Instead of mixing up photos from all decorations, you can have each piece represent one vacation. For example, you can have an Eiffel Tower photo frame that has a photo from their France trip and a beach-themed centerpiece with seashells for the vacation to the Bahamas. 

8. Seasonal Themed Photo Decorations (e.g., Christmas, Halloween)

Creative photo displays add a festive aesthetic to any seasonal celebration and the photos themselves are perfect for these types of events. That’s because our memories of past events shape our view of what each holiday means and the traditions we share. That’s why having photos of past traditions and celebrations is a great way to make this year’s Christmas, Halloween, or Thanksgiving even more special. 

9. “Our Story” Photo Centerpiece for Engagements or Showers.

You can use photo centerpieces to tell your story of romance for bridal showers, engagements, or any other event. There are specific frames you can buy that include multiple photos of first dates, proposals, weddings, and honeymoons that you can include for anniversary picture centerpieces, but you can also make your own out of the photos you have. 

10. “In Memoriam” Centerpiece: Honoring Loved Ones

A photo centerpiece is an exceptional way to honor loved ones who have passed away. You can include your favorite photos of them and even add in a personalized message about what they mean to you. Not only that, but you can add specific elements or decorations based on their hobbies and interests to create a completely personalized dedication. 

Integrating Technology in Photo Centerpieces

While physical photo frames can be great, you can spruce them up by incorporating digital photo frames. This can include 100s or even 1000s of photos as a slideshow and can even display old video camera movies. 

Another option is to include DVD or USB party favors in photos centerpieces so that attendees can take the family memories and photo slides home with them. You can even show the slideshow and photos on a digital carousel slide projector! 

Regardless of whether you are using a digital picture frame or physical photos, it’s important to preserve the memories as digital copies first. Capture can convert your old photos as well as videotapes, Super 8 film, and so much more in high quality digital format. 

In fact, we offer the first ever touchless photo album scanning. That means our digitization professionals can scan the photos in your photo albums without ever removing or touching them! 

Tips for Choosing the Right Photos and Accessories

Here are some tips to pick the right photo and centerpiece accessories! 

First, don’t just pick all the photos yourself. While you certainly have favorite photos you want to use, other family members and loved ones probably also have photos they’d like to see. As long as the photos centerpiece isn’t a surprise, get their input! 

Another thing to consider is the quality of the photo prints. Make sure you get high-quality photo prints so that they look great inside the wedding, birthday, graduation, or anniversary picture centerpieces. 

When it comes to accessories, there are tons of great options online. You can mix and match frames, stands, flowers, and other accessories to specifically match the aesthetic of the event. For example, to go with a rustic wedding centerpiece, you can use wooden picture frames and table numbers. 

We recommend using high quality frames and centerpieces though, so you can make sure the project lasts beyond the event as a precious heirloom. 

Conclusion

Photos centerpieces are a wonderful way to share precious memories while adding a unique decoration to an event. Plus, they can double as home decor ideas! There are tons of ways to create photo centerpieces, but we recommend matching them thematically to the event in question. Use our ideas as inspiration, but make sure you personalize it for your event and loved ones. 

If you need help digitizing photos, Capture offers the highest possible quality photo digitization. That way, you can use the photos for your centerpieces without losing them forever because they will be saved on the cloud, DVD, USB, or other hard drive. Click here to learn about our exclusive photo album scanning service!