How to Make a Gardenia Bouquet

Incorporate glossy green gardenia leaves in your bouquet.

Many brides enjoy creating much of the designs for their wedding, including floral designs. If you are one of the do-it-yourselfers, make your own bridal bouquet to hold as you walk down the aisle. Choose from fragrant blooms, such as gardenias. Make a traditional dome-shaped gardenia bouquet with fresh flowers, floral tape and shiny accents.

Things You'll Need

• 45 gardenia flowers
• Bucket
• Stem cutter
• Paper towels
• 10 stephanotis flowers
• Green floral tape
• Crystal-tipped corsage pins
• Tissue paper

Instructions

1. Trim greenery from all but eight of the gardenia flowers with the stem cutter. Pull away any damaged outer leaves from all blooms.

2. Fill a bucket halfway with cool water. Place the stems inside until you are ready to assemble the bouquet.

3. Remove one gardenia flower stem at a time. Blot the stem dry with a paper towel. Hold one gardenia stem in your hand. Use the other hand to add three more stems to create a square shape.

4. Surround the square with more flowers to create a dome shape until you use all but the last eight gardenias with leaves. Insert a stephanotis bloom periodically between gardenia blossoms.

5. Insert the gardenia blooms with the leaves left on the stems at the bottom of the bouquet. The dark green, 2- to 3-inch-long and 1-inch-wide leaves characteristic of gardenias provide contrast with the white flowers.

6. Wrap green floral tape around the stems. Begin just below the blooms and work your way down to 2 inches from the end of the stems.

7. Insert crystal-tipped corsage pins into the tape-wrapped stems for decoration.

8. Set the bouquet in a bucket of cool water. Fill the bucket so just the ends of the stems sit in the water.

9. Trim the 2-inch section off the stems when you are ready to use the bouquet. Wrap the bouquet in tissue paper and place in the refrigerator. Gardenias are fragile flowers that last in water up to two days and in the refrigerator for one day. Prepare the bouquet up to one day before you need it.

Tips & Warnings

• Glue crystal beads in a sporadic pattern to the green floral tape instead of the corsage pins if you want many crystals on the holder.

• Insert other accents such as baby’s breath for more texture in the bouquet.

References

• Wedding Flowers and Reception Ideas: Create a Bouquet
• Wedding Paper Divas: Wedding Flowers -- Bride's Bouquet
• University of Hawaii at Manoa Cooperative Extension; Common Gardenia; Kent D. Kobayashi, et al.; 2006