Good Day Everyone,
As much as my hubby and I wanted the ‘perfect’ wedding day
we didn't want to spend the best part of £20,000 on just one day of our life.
So, in order to save costs I made my own bridal bouquet the evening before the
wedding.
Saving money wasn’t the only reason we did our own flowers,
I absolutely love colour and really wanted to have a go at doing my own flowers
because working with such pretty, colourful things makes me really really
happy! Now, the sensible voice inside me would say to you that if you ever
intend on doing your own wedding flowers (or make up etc) then you must
practice beforehand! And that is indeed the advice I would give to others. But how
often do we take our own advice? Not very often, let me tell you. So no, I didn't practice making my own bridal bouquet or table flowers beforehand. In
fact, we didn't even know which flowers we were going to use for the table
flowers until we went out and bought them the day before the wedding!
From my previous wedding post (read here) you’ll know that
I wanted a bridal bouquet of pink roses with a few white ones. I had originally
planned to buy the flowers from Marks and Spencers online and turn them into my
own bouquet but a week before the wedding, whilst shopping in Manchester city
centre, we came across a street florist and got chatting to him. He had had the
same flower stall in Manchester city centre, by St. Ann’s church, for the past 14 years. We had a look at the
types of flowers he had and agreed that we would be back a week later to
purchase pink and white roses from him, as we’d much prefer to support a small
local business.
The street florist stall |
For all the things that I needed to make my own bridal
bouquet, my best friend who has a bridal shop in Leeds, recommended a store
called Country Baskets (website) which is a kind of wholesale store for floristry,
bridal and party supplies. You have to become a member in order to shop there
but membership is free and open to the public and the
prices are very good. This store was amazing! I was like a child in a sweet shop! Somebody like me, who likes to
make colourful, pretty things could sooo easily get carried away in there that
I had to force myself to go in with a list of things to buy and stick to the
list.
The morning before the wedding we were at the flower stall in
Manchester where we purchased 3 bunches of white roses and 6 bunches of pink
roses giving us 15 white roses and 30 pink. We knew that if we ran out we could
always pop back the next morning as the wedding was in the afternoon.
What I used to make
the bridal bouquet:
·
Flowers – I used 25 pink and 11 white roses
·
Ribbon - I bought ivory organza ribbon with gold
glitter
·
Steel scissors
·
Green cloth tape
·
Diamante pins
·
Pearl headed pins – I used white and cream
coloured ones
The pink & white roses we used |
Tools needed to make the bouquet |
Before I get into how I made my bridal bouquet, a couple of
tips for storing flowers. As soon as we got the flowers back to our hotel we
put them in a bucket of warm (not cold) tap water and kept them outside (not inside)
in order to keep them in optimal condition. We purposefully booked a hotel room
with an outdoor area for this reason. We left the flowers sat in water for most
of the day so that they were well hydrated and I started to make my bridal bouquet in the evening.
How I made the bridal
bouquet:
1.
I carefully stripped the thorns and leaves off
the rose stems.
2.
I picked
the most perfect pink rose as my central rose and I then took 6 white roses
(the white roses were smaller than the pink) and arranged them around the
central pink rose but just marginally lower height wise to create a kind of
dome effect.
3.
Using the green tape I taped the seven roses
together towards the top of the stems. If you tape them too low down, the stems become floppy and it’s difficult to build the next circle of roses around
them.
4.
Next, I
arranged a circle of pink roses around the tied bouquet, again just a little
lower in height to maintain the dome effect and taped them together. I stopped
at this stage, admired my own work, and felt happy with the bouquet. I showed it
to my hubby whose first response was, ‘Isn't it a bit small?’ but I’m a small
person and I didn’t want it to look too big for me. Just then my friend came
over who concurred with my hubby and so she helped me build another circle of
pink roses around the bouquet.
5.
After this second circle of pink roses we
reviewed our work and all three of us came to the consensus that the bouquet
now looked too pink and so we added five white roses, intermittently, within
the two outer circles of pink roses and voila we were happy with the result.
6.
Having made sure all the stems were taped
together tightly, we then proceeded to cut the stems down (at a slight angle)
to achieve the length that I wanted.
7.
Next we
wrapped the beautiful organza ribbon starting from near
the bottom of the stems, leaving a little bit of the green stems showing. We
secured the ribbon in place using a couple of pins – inserting them at a slight
angle instead of straight on
8.
We wrapped the ribbon up towards the top off the
stems and then worked it back down thus wrapping the stems twice as the ribbon was quite sheer.
9.
When we got the ribbon back down towards the
bottom of the stems we cut it at an angle and folded the edge under itself and
secured it with the pins so that there would be no fraying.
10.
We then left the bridal bouquet in some warm tap
water outside overnight.
Storing the bouquet outside over night |
The next morning I inserted a few diamante pins in the
centre of some of the roses for a bit of extra sparkle and voila I had made my
own bridal bouquet with a little help from my hubby and friend :o) All for the
fraction of the price a professional florist would charge and had a lot of fun
making it :o)
The finished bouquet |
A close up |
The finished bouquet |
What do you think of our efforts? Have you ever made your
own bridal bouquet? Would you be brave enough?
Love Sheen xxx
I really love reading and following your post as I find them extremely informative and interesting. This post is equally informative as well as interesting . Thank you for information you been putting on making your site such an interesting. Bridal Bouquets
ReplyDeleteAaaaw thank you Sanam. That's very kind of you. I'm sorry that I've not been very active on my blog lately and that it's taken me so long to reply to your comment. I've been sick a lot this year and moved countries! Life has been crazy but I'm working on my blog again now, and hope you continue to enjoy it :o)
DeleteLove Sheen xxx
Really good makes flowers i know whats flowers assets. b'coz i am a florist.
ReplyDeleteThank you for reading. I think being a florist is a lovely job - spending all your days surrounded by beautiful flowers. I hope you have a lovely day :o)
Delete