Sweet roses

LisaAugust 29, 2012

As I discussed here, we decided to do our own flowers. Our Fifty Flowers order arrived the Wednesday before the wedding and a customer service rep called within an hour to verify 1) we received the correct flowers and 2) the flowers were in good condition. All was well, and I filled up some containers in our guest bathroom tub.

I had a slight freakout that we only had half the red roses we ordered. Why? Notice the white cardboard around the roses? The directions said to leave that on for at least 24 hours while in water. I cut down one and saw that the roses were stacked to save space. Crisis averted.

Forgive the iPhone photo.

We over-ordered flowers. Like had tons left over. In hindsight, this was a good thing. We didn’t have to worry about running out or breaking a stem or two. At the same time, we did spend close to $100 more than we needed to.

While I was working on my bouquet Saturday morning (after my 9 am Michael’s run), I realized that I had no means of securing the flowers. I wrestled the rubber bands from the extra flowers in the tub and used those for my bouquet. I assembled my flowers by gathering the blooms at the same height in a large cluster. Nothing too fancy or crazy.

If you want to do your own flowers, make sure you purchase all your supplies ahead of time and that you keep them with your flowers! Also, if you have a particular design in mind, look for online tutorial videos or take a floral design class. I had no idea how to make a bouquet and a bridesmaid at the hair salon who took a floral design class. Fail.

You will need:
Flowers
Sharp scissors (kitchen shears may or may not work)
Rubber bands
Floral tape
Corsage pins
Ribbon
Container with water

Just a note: we did not do corsages or boutonnieres. I forgot and ran out of time. If you want to do these, assemble them the day before. All in all, this wound up being a good thing. I had the largest flowers and huge bug bites all over my arms. None of our seated family members were bothered by bugs.