When pricing wedding flowers, I was really shocked at the hundreds of pounds that they would cost. We agreed on a friend doing them, but when we found that we couldn't get what we wanted for under £200, I decided that I would attempt to make the bouquets myself. If it all went horribly wrong then we could fall back on getting a florist involved. I was surprised not only how easy they were to make, but also how cheap everything worked out – I managed to create 4 wedding bouquets and 7 buttonholes for under £25!
Materials
To create 4 bouquets and 10 buttonholes, I purchased the following:
- Foam roses – £4.88 (plus 99p postage) for 50 in a variety of colours (For my bouquet I used 30 foam roses, for the bridesmaids' bouquets I used 17 and for the youngest bridesmaid's bouquet I used 7.)
- Florist wire
- Florist tape for 99p delivered
- Fern (for the button holes) – £2.09 delivered
- Decorations – something like these 10 pearl decorations on wire for 99p.
- Ribbon – I would suggest something like 2cm wide ribbon to make it easier to tie (£1.79 for 22m which is more than enough).
- Glue gun – I already had a cheap one from Amazon for £2.97
How I made them
Surprisingly, making all 4 bouquets didn't take me long at all – in fact they took one episode of Britain's Got Talent to make.
I started by placing the decoration wire into the middle of each flower – this didn't take long at all, but doing almost 100 flowers at once was boring (hence the episode of Britain's Got Talent!).
To make the actual bouquets I started with the main middle flower and just kept adding alternating flowers around it. Once the bouquets looked to be the right size and shape, I used the florist wire to secure all the stems tightly. I then used florist's tape to cover the wire, making it more gentle on your hands when holding the bouquets.
Once all 4 bouquets were made, I made sure they all looked good (and I was amazed that they did!) then added the ribbon to the handle, making them co-ordinate with the wedding colours. I secured the ribbon by using the glue gun.
My something borrowed and something blue – my mum's engagement and wedding rings tied to my bouquet with blue ribbon. 8 years ago, this week, we lost her. I've been feeling a bit guilty about having our wedding this week, but we wanted to turn this week into a celebration, not sorrow.
Finally, for my bouquet, a few days before the wedding I added my Mum's engagement and wedding rings with blue ribbon, as my “something borrowed” and “something blue”.
Buttonholes
The buttonholes were also easy to make – starting with inserting the decorative wire into each flower. I then glued on the artificial fern and that was it, all done!
I absolutely loved the unique wedding bouquets. They cost me a tenth of what I had been quote (as mate's rates too!) for our wedding day flowers, and having them made in advance meant I didn't have to worry about them closer to the wedding.
What do you think of my DIY wedding bouquets?
2 responses
they are amazing! well done
These are beautiful, and look much more expensive that they were.