Thank goodness the days of HUGE Bridal bouquets has passed! Small, round bouquets with stems showing are being used more often in Weddings. Your local florist would be glad to bunch up a cluster of roses and tie with ribbon but believe me you'd pay dearly! And within a couple of days there is nothing left but photos of your flowers. By making a silk bouquet you have it for years to come, to keep with all your other wedding momentoes.
To make a bouquet you will need:
A Wilton bouquet holder (less than $3 at Walmart)
10-12 silk roses
wire cutters
A roll of green floral tape
Ribbon you choose to tie on and make ribbon loops (optional--for added color).
Stiff wire
Instructions:
The bouquet holder is a small circle of styrofoam incaged in a plastic holder with an attached handle.
In choosing roses, to make them more realistic looking, remove the end of the flower (I think it's called the calyx) and remove extra petals which make it look fully bloomed, leaving the last row and middle of the flower. This will make a small but more realistic looking rose. When buying roses, choose a more CLOTH feeling rose.
To form the bouquet, clip stems down to 5-6" long and beginning in the center insert a rose. Following the circle pattern fill your holder with closely fit roses, using the leaves as well for greenery. Make small loops of ribbon and attach to stiff wire, and wrap tightly with floral tape, inserting them into the cluster of flowers. To have stems showing at the bottom cut the end of the stem to your desired length and holding them around the handle, wrap tightly with floral tape at the top (so as not to show) and leave the rest of the stem showing.
Tie on ribbon and wire onto the top of the handle also wrapping with floral tape to cover the wire. This makes a beautiful rose cluster bouquet your Bride will be proud to carry. Many people at my Daughter's wedding were surprised to find out that hers was not real--but silk flowers and she proudly displays them in her Curio cabinet, still as pretty as the day she used them.
Here is an alternative to florist prices for flowers. While I don't have a photo I am sure you will get the idea!! My son is getting married in April 09 and the wedding is on the cheap. What I did for bouquets is the following: took a toilet paper roll inserted styrofoam to fit snugly inserted silk flowers on stems into the styrofoam arranged as needed inserted babys breath and greenery under the flowers wrapped the toiletpaper roll with color coordinated ribbon (including the underside) pinned the end of ribbon with pearl headed straight pins directly thru the toilet paper roll into the styrofoam viola!! instant bouquet This takes about 15 minutes per bouquet and looks like a designer bouquet for pennies!!
I love fresh flowers, but I chose to create my own bouquets/corsages/boutonnieres using silk flowers instead for my own wedding in Oct. '07 for convenience, cost, and looks. The majority of my fall flowers were purchased at Dollar Tree in mid to late summer when they first begin stocking autumn items, and no one could believe I got them there! If you choose not to use a bouquet holder, you can instead gather the stems tightly together, wrap with floral tape, and cover completely with ribbon that you hot glue to secure. Here's my bridesmaid Rachel's bouquet that I made, with the handle as described.
This is a great idea. We also made the button holes for the groom's party and pin on flowers for my mum and mother in law. For the bridesmaids my grandma bought some fancy plastic fans in white and added flowers to them. THe girls carried these instead of bouquets. My grandmas also made the girls hair slides. She bough some large black combs and covered them in black ribbon, she then glue the fabric flowers onto the ribbon. The flowers match the ones on the fans. Using some silver glitter glue, she outlined some of the petals for added sparkle. All up it cost me $200 instead of nearly $600. Both my mothers still wear their sprays of flowers on special occasions and my daughters have used their father's and uncle's pin hole flowers on hair slides. We also used the fabric flowers on the tables.
This is gorgeous. I wore a vintage gown, and found that fresh flowers were too BRIGHT for the dress, so went with antiqued silks and dried flowers mixed together. I got my flowers done by a friend in SC and the wedding was in NY - could never have done that with fresh ones!
We also took extra flowers and netting and wrapped embroidery hoops with potpourri inside and floral accents to be the "pew bows" for the family pews, and then let the grandparents, each set of parents, and us keep one each.
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