Floral Bouquets
Creating your own floral bouquets will allow you to mix and match real and silk flowers (for your favourite out-of-season blooms).
Where to find your flowers: farmer’s markets, online wholesalers, florists, grocery stores or craft stores.
What you will need: gardening shears, floral tape, pins, fabric or ribbon, flowers (long-stem) and any personal touches.
- Ensure all your stems are the same length (the longer the better as you can trim to your preferred measurements)
- Trim all foliage, thorns and rough edges from stems
- Start with selecting a few flowers to create your anchor for the rest of the bouquet—wrap tape around the stems an inch or so down the stalk
- Start building your bouquet by placing flowers around your small anchor bunch; wrapping tape around the stems each time you add a new layer
- Mix textures, colours and sizes to match your wedding theme
- Once you have the size of the bouquet you desire, trim the stems, ensuring you can comfortable hold with both hands
- Wrap tape from about 1 inch down the bouquet, leaving about half-an-inch exposed at the bottom
- Choose material or ribbon that complements your big days style, and wrap the ribbon around the stems to hide the tape
- Use a sewing pin or brooch to hold the ribbon in place
Optional: you may wish to secure small photos or mementoes to the wrapped stem of your bouquet for a personal touch.
Brooch Bouquets
A brooch bouquet is a great way to make use of any decorative pins tucked in the back of your jewellery drawer. Ask family members and friend’s to contribute any brooches they have lying around for a touching and unique bouquet—it could even be your “something borrowed” or “something blue”.
Great places to find brooches: Op shops, online stores (eBay and etsy), jewellery stores
What you will need: brooches, a small collection of flowers (real or silk), leaf stems, green wire, floral tape, scissors, wire cuddles, fabric or ribbon, pins and a glue gun.
- To create your brooch ‘flowers’, loop a piece of wire in half and twist 2 ‘stems’ together
- Using 2 twisted stems, secure your brooch so it is sturdy (one wire stem at each end of the brooches pin) and twist the 2 stems together
- Wrap the entire length of your wire with the floral tape
- Create a bunch of brooch flowers, ranging in different sizes and colours
- Assemble your bouquet by starting with larger brooches and flowers in the centre and building around it until you are happy with the display
- Tape the stems together
- Place a few smaller flowers around the sides of the bouquet to hide any wires and tape in place
- Wrap your fabric or ribbon around the stems and pin in place
- Trim the wire stems so they are not visible and you are done!
Optional: add feathers, shells, colourful fruits or decorative buttons to create an interesting twist.
[Relevant: 5 Wedding Flower Mistakes To Avoid]
