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Make your own Wedding Bouquets

Bundles of flowers are in style right now. Not that we follow style. But I rather like them. They stand out from the traditional wedding bouquet. Now, the flowers above are more traditional colors as they were done for my sister's wedding. But the beauty of this bouquet is that it can really be done with any kind of flower, in any color. Also, the ribbon around the stems can be any color. So, you really have a lot of darker options.

Materials:

A large variety of flowers
Bouquet of Baby's Breath or other interesting fillers
Corsage pins
Satin ribbon in appropriate color
Gardening shears
Florist wire
Green florist tape

Basically, this bouquet is formed from the inside out. The tallest flower will be in the center. You will cut all of the stems at the end, so don't worry about them being uneven, just about the look of the flowers. I find it easiest to sort the flowers into buckets around me so they are easily seen and not getting mooshed on the floor. So, as I said, the tallest flower will be the center and you will build flowers around this in a dome. Just keep adding flowers and Baby's Breath until you have a very full bouquet, stopping every once in a while to wrap florist wire around the stems.

For the wire, just cut a few lengths about 12", and have them handy. Wrapping the stems keeps the bouquet sturdy as well as saves you from the disaster of dropping and having to start over. When you feel the bouquet is full, take one last piece of wire and wrap from the top of the stems down to about 2" above where you want the bottom of the stems to be. Using the garden shears, clip the stems until they are all the same length. Take the florist tape and wrap from just under the top to a couple inches above the bottom of the stem length to further secure the bouquet.

Next, take the ribbon and start at the top again. Push a corsage pin through the ribbon downward into the stems so it doesn't poke through the other side. Wrap the ribbon around the pin once to camouflage and then continue the ribbon winding down the stems. Stop about 2" above the bottom and this time push the pin up into the stems, again making sure the pin doesn't poke through .You don't want your bride or the bridesmaids bleeding all of the dresses. Or maybe you do. Who am I to say?

Wedding reception tip: We found very basic, tall glass vases at a discount or craft store and provided one for each bridesmaid and bride. This was an easy way to decorate the bridal table as well as provide the bouquets with some protection so the girls could take them home. As you can see here, we had a lot of bridesmaids, so they had significantly smaller bouquets than the Bride and Maid of Honor.

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