How to Arrange Wedding Roses & Preserve the Flowers
Roses are a classic choice for wedding flowers. They are beautiful, easily obtained for arranging your own bridal bouquets, and available in a variety of colors to suit different tastes. With a few supplies, you can be on your way to creating and preserving a rose bouquet to ensure its freshness for the big day.
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Things You'll Need
- 12 to 15 fresh roses (minimum)
- Scissors
- Floral tape
- Ribbon
- Beaded-head corsage pins
- Plastic container or bucket
- Professional flower food
Instructions
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Gather your supplies and fresh flowers no more than a day before the event. Getting them too early will cause you to have difficulty preserving their freshness and fragrance until the wedding day, but you need at least one day to properly prepare the flowers for the bouquet.
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2
Use the scissors to remove the thorns and extra leaves on the roses. You'll also want to gently remove any unattractive or brown petals.
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3
Begin shaping the bouquet by selecting three roses for the center. Add three more additional roses around the center three in a triangular shape. Be sure to vary the heights of the additional roses by about one-quarter of an inch above and below the middle to give the bouquet depth and visual interest.
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Continue to add roses around this base shape in an even fashion to begin creating a circular shape. The flowers should sit closely together for a tight but not crushed look. Again, be sure to stagger the heights as you add roses.
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Once you have created the desired fullness and shape for the arrangement, pull the stems together and wrap them in floral tape, from a few inches below the base of the flowers to a few inches from the bottom of the stems. Trim the ends of the stems to an even length.
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Wrap the floral-tape with ribbon and secure it at the top and bottom with the beaded-head corsage pins. This will hide the tape and bring in one of your wedding colors.
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7
Immediately place the bouquet in a plastic container containing an inch or so of water mixed with professional flower food. Keep the container in either the refrigerator or a cool place that is away from direct sunlight or heat. You can also loosely cover the bouquet. Remember that handling the bouquet once the arrangement is complete will cause the flowers to wilt more quickly, so resist the urge to move it too much.
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Tips & Warnings
There are home remedies to keeping flowers fresh, such as adding lemon-lime soda, pennies or aspirin to the water, but stick with professional flower food to ensure the best results.
