How to Create a Unique Wedding Bouquet

Create a unique and beautiful wedding bouquet and save money. Bridal bouquets from the florist are often too expensive. Sometimes the florist makes an error in the type of flower, or the blooms have not yet opened or are not fresh. Thus, it is often best to create your own bridal bouquet. The amount of designs and flowers to be used is limitless.

Things You'll Need

• Fresh flowers
• Garden clipper tool
• Gardening gloves
• Floral wire
• Ribbon
• Hat pin

Instructions

1. Decide upon the design and color scheme for the bouquet. Then find a garden store, grocery store or florist that sells fresh cut flowers at reasonable prices. Or browse your backyard garden to find flowers to cut to use in a bouquet. Choose flowers that are fresh, fully open and are known to hold their freshness for at least 24 hours.

2. Gather together all needed tools such as gardening gloves, gardening clipper tool, floral wire, ribbon, and fresh flowers. Keep the cut flowers in water until you put them in the bouquet.

3. Decide how to combine flowers to made a lovely bouquet. For example, for a wedding with a purple theme you could use cut lilacs in the bouquet alone or combined with white or pink tulips. For a wedding with a white theme you could create a bouquet of white roses or white daisies. A wedding with a pink theme could use a bouquet with peonies, roses, tulips, pink daisies, lilies or a combination of different pink flowers.

4. Sketch a drawing of the shape of the bouquet you will create once you have picked the flowers. A classic bouquet is round, other designs have elements that dangle from the main bouquet and some designs consist of one single dramatic flower stem. Then gather the flowers and cut the stems to the desired length. Most bouquets have a stem length of at least 6 inches to allow you to grasp the bouquet firmly.

5. Wire bunches of flowers together with the floral wire. Ensure that all stems are attached firmly with the wire. Add more stems gradually to achieve the desired design of the wedding bouquet. When all flowers are wired together check the stem of the bouquet to ensure that no ragged stems or sharp wires are protruding. Then wrap the stem tightly with decorative ribbon in the color of your choice. Popular colors for ribbon include white, ivory, pink, gold, silver or colors to match the theme of the wedding. Some prefer to use green ribbon to replicate the color of the flower stems. Secure the ribbon with a hat pin through the ribbon and the stems of the flowers.

Tips & Warnings

• Make the wedding bouquet as close in time to the ceremony as possible to ensure freshness. Use flowers that are in full bloom and fresh. Tell friends and neighbors you wish to create your own bridal bouquet. They may offer flowers from their garden to use in the bouquet.

• Shake flowers a bit before starting to create the bouquet to remove any loose debris. Make sure the pin to secure the ribbon is fully hidden in the stems of the flowers and that the sharp end does not stick out the side of the handle area.