I bought $10 worth of flowers from the grocery store consisting of yellow and pink carnations and pink alstromeria. (When I make the actual bouquets for my wedding they will be different colors.) I brought them home and left the flowers in the kitchen sink until I was ready to go to work!
The first step was removing all of the access foliage off of the stems. Then I trimmed them down to about 14 inches.
I started with three center flowers and using floral tape, wrapped the stems starting at about an inch below the bloom, wrapping all the way down leaving approximately 5 inches of stem exposed at the bottom. I'd place two or three more stems in the bunch in my hand, and wrap again with the floral tape. Once all the flowers were placed I wrapped it one more time with the floral tape, just to make the bouquet was as solid and sturdy as possible. I cut a strip of burlap fabric that was about two feet long and 2 inches wide (instead of using ribbon like most bouquets) and wrapped the base of it to conceal the floral tape. I secured the burlap with a couple of floral pins and voilà!
After completing the bouquet I realized the stems could be a little shorter, but other than that I think it turned out fabulously!!! It took me about 45 minutes to make, I was a little slow going in the beginning but picked up speed and confidence as I got going. (I think it should take about 2 hours to make 4 bouquets the night before the wedding.) Total cost, including the floral tape, floral pins with pearl heads and flowers, I spent around $15 to make this bouquet. I let it sit in a vase of water for several days, and by the fourth day it started to wilt, so I am super confident that making them the night before they will still look fresh the next day.
Since I was a bad blogger and didn't (couldn't) take pictures of the entire process (my hands were a little tied!) you can view the awesome tutorial I followed here.
