Monday, June 7, 2010

Planning Your Wedding on a Shoestring Budget - Making Your Own Flowers

There are plenty of wholesale stores who will sell silk flowers at a greatly discounted price.  Working with silk flowers is easy and can be done by almost anyone.  You can put together all the bouquets, boutonnières, and corsages no professional training. 

Some basic equipment you’ll need is floral wire, floral tape, wire cutters, flowers, greenery, and decorative accents like baby’s breath or smaller flowers.  These instructions are mainly for silk flowers, but can be used with real flowers as well.  Silk flowers can be manipulated much easier than real ones, so keep that in mind!

Tips for creating your own flowers are abundant.  A beautifully simple idea for a gorgeous bridal bouquet is to take several white roses, bunch them together into a bouquet, wrap the bottom with floral tape tightly, and wrap satin ribbon around the stems.  Attach long pieces of satin ribbon to flow down as you hold the bouquet and it’ll be stunning!

You can use this technique with either silk or fresh flowers, and it doesn’t have to be all roses.  For a unique look, try out different flowers in your wedding colors.  You can also buy plastic nosegay holders at many discount stores and craft stores that make preparing bouquets super easy!

Don’t worry if you can see the tape or wire.  You can always disguise it with ribbon or filler.

For your bridesmaids, you can have them carry the traditional nosegay.  Assemble it in the same way outlined above for the bridal bouquet.  A very elegant look is to have each attendant carry a single flower or a few flowers put together with greenery and ribbon that they carry cradled in their arms.  These are super easy to put together.  Just take a few flowers, greenery, and accents, gather the stems together, wrap with floral tape and add ribbon.

For the boutonnières, simple is best, especially since they will be worn by the men in your wedding party.  Most guys don’t want garish flowers adorning their bodies – it’s just a guy thing! 

To put together a boutonniere, take a single flower; add a few green leaves, and maybe a sprig of baby’s breath.  Wrap the stem in floral tape tightly and voila!  Your boutonnière!  You can, if you wish, add a little bit of ribbon, but don’t go too overboard – remember the “guy thing”!

More on making your own flowers in our next article.


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