Weddingbee Blog

With one trial behind me, I decided I’d opt for one more! A few days ago I stopped at the Union Square flower stand to pick up more beauties for another bouquet experiment. This time, I took home 9 stems of peony roses in cream, 15 pinky astilbes, two bunches of sweet peas - one white and one lavender - 7 stems of white wax flowers, a last second grab, and 9 stems of white ranunculus.

Since this is trial #2, I decided to be more organized and systematic. I was even able to break out my dress and hold the flowers up to it since Mr. Sunbeam was not around! One more bonus - we had some ribbon from shower gifts still hangin’ around so I used it to tie the bouquets! No shoe bag this time (we’re movin’ on uuup…). On the downside, I did the trial in the evening, so the pics are a little yellow. In the voice of Joe from Family Guy, “Let’s do this!”

After cutting the stems and declawing the roses, I spread out a group of flowers that I wanted to work with. Starting with three large roses, I built around them with wax flowers and more roses. I then wrapped the bunch tightly with ribbon and trimmed the stems. Take a look at my first trial run!

Not bad. The handle length is a little extreme! Next, peony roses and astilbes. The picture is a bit blurry - there was some guesswork focusing the camera before grabbing the bouquet and sprinting in front of the lens. My socks were soaked from all the water that dribbled onto the floor!

Third up: peony roses, sweet peas, and ranunculuses. I quickly realized it was better to place the ranunculus in bunches of 2-3 instead of one by one so they didn’t get lost among the bigger flowers. A little advice from the novice florist!

This round got me OVER my love of sweet peas. They were hard to work with because they cling together and once again were hardly noticeable. If I am going to DIY, I need easy peasy flowers. I’ll leave the sweet peas to the pros. Here’s the same bouquet with wax flowers swapped for the sweet peas.

I liked the red wax flower nubs! They tie in nicely with our red color scheme. Alright, no holding back now. Time for a big bridal-icous bouquet. All in! Well, all but the sweet peas.

Now this looks bridal! I think we have a winner! Here it is in a vase and with my dress.

I really think I can pull this DIY off! If you’re considering DIY, I highly recommend seeing flowers firsthand before ordering them. I knew ranunculus were small, but they turned out to be even smaller than I imagined. Also by the end of my experiment, my flowers were getting pretty tired and droopy. Practicing ahead of time will hopefully allow me to get the right bouquet made in one shot so the flowers are handled less.

I didn’t forget about my bridesmaids! Now, keep in mind this example is way smaller than it would be for the big day since I had limited supplies. Here I used the ranunculus, astilbes, and wax flowers, thinking I could save the roses to make my flowers more ‘distinguished’. I am also considering an earlier bouquet of ranunculus and roses for the ’maids. In that case, mine would still have the astilbes and wax flowers to set it apart.

Mr. Sunbeam even got into the mix when he came home and made little centerpieces for me! What a good fiance. As always, use your imagination here - picture a small white vase with a smaller opening at the top!

and..

Could work!? The flowers won’t be the only element of the centerpieces, just an accent. I might still try to poke some black and white anemones into the mix, but then, that might be overkill.

At least I can say, “Wedding - we have our flowers.” Just in time, if you ask me. *Gleeeeee*

Are you going to DIY your flowers? If so, are you planning to, or did you do a few trial runs before hand? Which of my experiments did you like the best?