Let's start from the beginning. . . Friday afternoon before the wedding (which took place on a Saturday) I went to Costco and pretty much wiped out the flower section! For my bouquet I purchased two dozen white roses and a large bouquet of white flowers, which I can not identify. (At the time I could care less, they were inexpensive and fit the bill!) For the bridesmaid's bouquets I purchased all of the magenta colored flowers I could get my hands on in the Costco flower section. I even asked an employee if they had more in the back and was escorted to the walk in refrigerator where I was able to pick out exactly what I wanted. (Hey, it never hurts to ask, right?!) I felt like I needed a couple more unique looking flowers for the bridesmaid bouquets so we stopped at Trader Joe's where I picked up a couple of bouquets of magenta colored dalias. I kept all of the flowers in 10 gallon buckets until I was able to start arranging them. At about 11:30 pm the night before the wedding I got started! Luckily I had a couple extra helping hands.
I also purchased 13 potted orchids from the farmers market the weekend before (for only $8 a pop!) to be used for the bouquets, boutinears and wristlets, in addition to using one orchid on each of the 9 tables at the reception. I plucked the orchid blossoms off of the plant and attached them to floral wiring using floral tape in order to give them a 'stem'. This was quite tedious and time consuming, but I was determined to have orchids in the bouquets!
To see the full tutorial on how to create your own bouquet, go here. They explain it much better than I ever could! . . . Anyhow, once I had assembled the bouquets using floral tape, I kept the stems long and left them in sitting in water over night in the 10 gallon buckets.
We were up until 2:30am the night before the wedding getting everything done. Yes, it would have been nice to get a good nights sleep, but honestly it was a lot of fun and totally worth every penny that was saved by doing it myself.
The morning of the wedding we woke up at 7:00 and wrapped the bridesmaid bouquets with burlap, secured them with pins and cut the stems. At the last second I realized I didn't have enough burlap for my bouquet but my sister saved the day by having some extra satin ribbon on hand. I actually liked the way my bouquet turned out wrapped with the white ribbon more so than if all had gone according to plan and I had used the burlap!
I created a couple extra orchids with wire stems to use in my hair, my step daughters hair and for my two nieces.
I made turquoise beaded wristlets for the mother of the bride, mother of the groom as well as for my sister-in-law. I also made boutonnieres for all the men (fathers, brothers, stepson, etc.)
The stems of the boutonnieres were also wrapped with a bit of burlap and secured with hemp twine. Out of all the flower arrangements I made, these were honestly the toughest and trickiest! The stems of the orchids were so delicate and I broke several in the process. But luckily I had extra! Everything turned out perfect and they all looked fantastic for the wedding!
Here's a few more close ups of the gorgeous flowers;
Here's the breakdown of everything I made:
(1) Brides bouquet
(3) Bridesmaid bouquets
(1) Small bouquet to toss
(6) Boutonnieres
(3) Wristlets
(5) Orchids for hair
And here's the breakdown of costs:
Floral wire, floral tape & pearl head pins - $15.00
Orchids - $32.00
Roses - $17.00
Other white flowers - $9.00
Misc. magenta flowers - $35
Dalias - $26
Turquoise beads for wristlets- $0 (I already had a ton of beads and beading supplies)
Burlap and hemp - $0 (I used what I had leftover from other wedding projects like the table runners and banners)
Total cost: $134.00
So what do you think?! I really loved the way everything turned out and do not regret tackling this time consuming task the night before and the morning of the wedding. It's all about planning and patience. If you are willing to take on such a massive DIY project in order to save a ton of money, go for it, that's my motto! Everybody at the wedding could not believe I had made all the bouquets, which was the best compliment I think I could have received!
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