Making Your Own Wedding Bouquets

I think I found my new calling: Wedding Coordinator. 

This past weekend was my sister's wedding, and I was a bridesmaid, florist, and photographer.  I was most excited about doing the flowers because I knew it would be something that I would enjoy doing.  She chose hydrandea's and after watching a 5 minute YouTube video on making hydrangea bouquets, I was ready for the challenge.

Making your own wedding bouquets is much simpler than you might originally think, especially if you're using full, fluffy flowers. 

The bouquets turned out lovely, and I didn't even need any of the accessory ribbon that I purchased to decorate them a bit.

The only bad thing about these bouquets is that hydrangea's are apparently very thirsty flowers, and can't go for long without water.  I make these in the morning and left the stems long so that we could put them in water until right before we left.  I cut the stems down to about an inch below the ribbon when we walked out the door.  Three hours later some of the blooms still looked fine, but some of them had really wilted. 

I also did two large altar arrangements for the church, using the hydrangeas and some filler flowers and greens that my sister ordered. 

I thought the large arrangements turned out really nice, but was disappointed that they were place far back on the altar and were barely noticeable unless you knew to look for them. I was thinking that they would be placed more in the forefront, on the steps up to the altar where I've seen flowers placed before, because they really did look nice and deserved to be noticed!

The bouquets were really simple to make, and if anyone is interested, here is all you need:

• 4 to 5 hydrangea stems per bouquet
• 1 wide rubber band per bouquet
• Green floral tape
• Wide satin ribbon
• Pins with pearl heads
• Cool heat hot glue gun

To put together the arrangements:

1. Put your stems together and arrange them the way you want them
2. Put a rubber band at the base of the flowers so that the bouquet stays together
3. Starting at the rubber band, wrap green floral tape around the stems for at least 6 inches (decide how long you want your stems to be for the bouquets before you get to this step)
4. Once the floral tape is in place, put a line of warm glue about a 1/2 inch down from the top of the floral tape and secure your ribbon
5. Wrap the ribbon around the stems, going up first to cover the floral tape, but then heading back down to cover your starting point
6. At the bottom, decide which part of the bouquet is going to be the front
7. On the back of the bouquet then, place another line of glue and secure and cut your ribbon
8. On the front of the bouquet, place a pearl-headed pin down the front, every 1/2 inch or so
9. Place in an inch or so of water until you're ready to use them!

It looks me about 2 and a half hours to make 4 bouquets and 2 large altar arrangements.  If only I had realized my talent before my own wedding, I probably could have saved us a ton of money (although that would have added to my own stress at the time, I'm sure.)

So, now the only question is - What to name my floral design business?