DIY Wedding Flowers

There will be nothing styled about the photos from this post. I don’t even have pictures of the flowers in place, because I was working, working, working on the flowers. The boutonnieres had pins and ribbons to finish them off. I thought I would share in spite of all that.

My sister in law, Gina, got married this last weekend on the Solstice and I offered to do the flowers for her. We had a pinterest floral board and we had done a dry run at the LA Floral Mart a couple weeks before the wedding, so that I knew we were on the same page and I would know where to go when the time came.

I ordered some David Austin garden roses from a wholesaler in Carlsbad and picked them up on our way up to LA. The first day I did 3 table arrangements for the rehearsal dinner I composed those with coral spray roses, bright green mums, astilbe, bougainvillea, and star jasmine. The bougainvillea and star jasmine were pilfered from the silverlake neighborhood we were staying in.

I gridded out the vases with waterproof tape and built from there. I was really surprised by how well the bougainvillea held up. The arrangements only got better over the last few days.

As for the day of flowers I made:

1 floral crown for the flowergirl
6 boutonnieres
2 corsages
1 bridal bouquet
1 moh bouquet
12 tabletop arrangements
3 larger arrangements
1 cake topper

Flowers used:

Pepper Tree cuttings from around town
Fig Vine cuttings thx to Allison and Matt
Thistle
Something that looked like pink pinecones – aka I have no idea what it is called
Kale
Dahlias
Garden Roses
Spray Roses
Roses
Scabiosa
Scabiosa Pods
Queen Anne’s Lace
Double-Flower Lisianthus

I started with the floral crown by making a few bunches and arranging them on a copper wire that I shaped and turned the ends into loops that I could string ribbon through. After making that I had a good idea of what I wanted the boutonnieres to look like, so I made those next.

I made a sample of the tabletop arrangements and my sister, Caley, made the rest of those. Then it was on to the Bride’s bouquet. By then I was hitting a wall and I was a little nervous to dive in, so I started wiring the garden roses and bunching small vignettes together (can you say thank god for floral tape). I think it turned out great.

After that was done I moved on to the MOH bouquet and that was easy because I just made it smaller and riffed on what I had done for the bride. Then it was on to the larger arrangements and cake topper.

I will say after doing this and getting to take home some of the arrangements I’m most definitely going to have flowers around my home more. Even though I was under pressure I had a great time being creative with nature. It did my heart good.

* Pro-tip buy the preservative it was well worth it. Even overnight out of water my bouquet looked amazing.

I bought all the tools I needed at the floral mart. It was way cheaper than a craft store or purchasing online. For instance the preservative was around 9 bucks compared to 20 on Amazon.

I know this isn’t a great step-by-step tutorial, but I thought I would share that it can be done. If you have any questions please comment and I will do my best to answer them for you.