Starfish, the Not-Dead Kind

My apparent love affair with starfish started shortly after Tom and I chose our ceremony venue. We decided to go with a nautical theme, and for what ever reason, the starfish became a design element. Thus far, the starfish has primarily made an appearance in graphic form. For example, we have starfish on the belly band of our invitations, starfish are the back drop of our wedding day stationary, and foil starfish make an appearance on our personalized matchbooks.

You'll notice I didn't mention starfish in our decor. This is where I ran into trouble. I love the look of starfish, I don't love the smell of dried starfish. I also did not like the principle of decorating our reception with dead sea creatures. The reality of the dried starfish that people pick up at craft stores is this, live starfish are either farm raised or wild caught, and then kiln dried flat. That's not a very nice thing to do in my opinion. There are also horror stories online about guests contracting food poisoning and other illnesses from handling improperly cleaned starfish and seashells prior to eating dinner. All things considered, I quickly nixed any decor ideas that I had that involved starfish.

Then I went shopping, and I found these:

All the natural beauty of a starfish without the guilt of killing innocent sea creatures. These are artificial starfish made of acrylic. I'm in love. 

Made in China! Not real! 

The larger "white pencil" starfish are about six inches across, the smaller starfish are about three inches across. I bought 18 of the larger ones first (three packages of six), and I was so impressed with the quality that I went back and bought 60 of the smaller ones. The larger ones will be used through out the reception decor, possibly on the tables, on the cake, where ever. I have another plan for the smaller starfish...

Source

Escort cards! I purchased ivory "print-your-own" escort cards that I will print with guest's names and table numbers, then I'll pop a hole in each one and attach it to a starfish with a purple ribbon.

My starfish love is becoming a cohesive theme! I love it when things work out.

Are you using starfish in your wedding decor? Are you using real or artificial?