Bouquet Making

Fresh Floral Bouquet

Make it simple and it will look wonderful.

A unique bouquet will enhance a plain dress.
A simple bouquet will enhance an elaborate dress

bouquets

You will need floral or stem wrap tape, some floral wire (to support the weaker stems), a bouquet collar (if you are using one). A bouquet should be easy to hold and should compliment the holder not overwhelm them.
You will hold your bouquet with both of your hands, arms slightly downward so that they are comfortably just below your waist line. Look in the mirror with your wedding gown/ dress on and this will help you determine the size and shape bouquet you want to hold.
Your flowers / bouquet should work with your dress design, your body shape and how tall you are. Petite brides have petite bouquets. When you think about what flowers you want in your bouquets please keep in mind "the season" and "where you are having the wedding".
The bouquet is just a larger version of the corsage. If you have read the corsage making instructions you are ready for bouquet making. Bouquets look better when the flower stems are showing. If you are planning to toss the bouquet you make a second one for that purpose.


For fresh flowers the first thing to do is to soak the flowers in a preservative solution for several hours so the bouquet will last a long time. 1. Loosely wrap the wire around the full length of the stems in a spiral. 2. Cut the stems across the bottom before wrapping in floral tape.


Taping wired stems 1. Wrap a piece of floral tape around the top of the wire and press in place. 2. Turn the stems and stretching and pulling the tape in a downward angle. The tape should be tightly wrapped around the wire stems without any buckles or gaps.


Wrapping Stems with Ribbon 1. Hot glue the end of the ribbon 1" from the bottom of the stems.


2. Pull the ribbon around the bottom of the stems and wrap carefully up the length of the stems. Hot glue at the top to secure and trim off any extra ribbon.


3. To add tails to wrapped stems hot glue ends of ribbon to ends of stems before wrapping the stems with ribbons.

Nosegay Bouquet
Nosegay- A hand-held fragrant cluster of flowers designed as a small bouquet. Dating from 14th century, this clutch of flowers and foliage was originally used to mask unpleasant odors, thus the name "nosegay". Also called a tussy mussy.
(Wedding) A round bouquet carried by a member of a wedding party such as bride, bridesmaid, or flower girl.

As you add flowers and foliage, make changes easily by moving the flowers into the position you desire.

The next step is to lift the flowers out of the vase as you gather flowers together with both hands. Wrap arrangement with floral tape, trim stems to desired length.

then wrap with ribbon and pace the bow. This bouquet can be used after the wedding as a centerpiece on a table at the reception.
Posy bouquet

What you need

9 Large cream white rose silk flowers.
13 Dark pink rosebud silk flowers.
13 Large green leaves.

Arranging The Bouquet

Start by wiring and then taping your flowers.
Take the cream rose silk flowers, and hold them in your hand like you have just picked them
Start placing pink rosebuds in amongst the cream roses
Keep putting in rosebuds until you are happy with the pattern. You may need to "fan" the outer roses out, to allow space for the rosebuds. (We will tighten up the bouquet later). The pattern you use should be circular in shape, although it doesn't have to be perfect.
We have put 5 rosebuds around the center rose, and have placed a rosebud in between the roses in the outer ring.
Hold the wires just underneath the roses, and squeeze slowly, to tighten up the bouquet

Framing The Posy Bouquet

Now it's time to add some greenery to the outside to frame the bouquet.
This is quite simple really. Just take some wired leaves, and start adding them around the outside of the boquet
How many leaves you add is up to you. The impotant thing is to make sure the pattern remains circular

Checking the spacing

Taking a look at the bouquet front on, we can see that there are still some gaps in the bouquet

We have 3 choices to fix up the gaps:
Tighten up the bouquet some more.
Add some more flowers.
Add something extra.
Insert the leaves in the gaps in the bouquet
To softened a little add 3 pearlies into the bouquet

Crescent Bouquet

A crescent bouquet consists of 3 main parts. Let's call them A, B and C.
We are making here is an assymmetrical crescent bouquet. One end is longer than the other.
So, the A portion is slightly longer than the B portion. Both A and B will look like they are flowing from C, which is the center of the bouquet.
C is where you have to build more volume and is considered as the body of the crescent bouquet.
There are two ways to carry a crescent bouquet. You either carry it horizontally or vertically.
To start making,
Here's what we need...

artificial flowers (here I am using roses with some fillers)

satin ribbon

floral tape

floral wire

What you have to do is...

you need to wire all flowers and leaves one by one. Take a single rose and attach a floral wire to it and tape them together with floral tape. This would make each of the flower and leaf bendable to the direction we want.

When that's done, make the A part. Take a single rose and as you go along, tape some leaves and fillers together. Make it look like it is flowing like a waterfall. More flowers on the top side. Here's what A would look like.

Next, we make the B. The B is just like the A, only shorter. Also make the B like it is a waterfall. Here's what B would look like.

Then, we join A and B together with the largest bloom between them. We are now making the C part. Keep on adding flowers, fillers and leaves between them. Tape them all together using floral tape.

While adding the flowers, add also the satin ribbon which is tied with a floral wire.

As you keep adding the flowers, adjust them a bit so that every flower can be seen. When you are happy with it, tie a floral wire around the stem to make it stronger. Tape them all into a single strong stem.

Then hold it with your hand and cut the stem into the same length at one inch from your hand.

Cover the end of the stem with floral tape to avoid the sharp wire ends from destroying your wedding dress.

Lastly, we cannot leave the stem with floral tape because it is sticky. Wrap with the same ribbon you used in the bouquet.

Composite Bouquet

A composite bouquet or a glameria is a single bloom bouquet carried by brides who love the old English style.
Rose is the most used flower
for this bouquet, besides gladiolus. So, here we will show you how to made a rose composite bouquet.

First, we have to prepare...

4 white roses

artificial leaves

floral wire

floral stem

spanish moss

a strand of pearls

a strand of wrapped rose petals

copper wire

Now, let's start making...

Take one full bloom rose. This will be center of the bouquet. Take the floral wire and insert it into the rose stem and bend on both sides. Put in a bowl of clean water to maintain its freshness.

Take the other 3 roses and separate the petals piece by piece and put them in a container of water, too.

Next, we have to bend the wires to the shape we need. To do this, you need to take about 20 cmof floral wire and bend it into two. Leave 1 cm between the two legs. Then, take the pliers and bend the 1 cm part a bit.

While holding 2 pieces of petals overlapping each other, take a shaped wire and poke it at the bottom of the petals. Take another wire and insert from the back of the petals. Then slightly twist the end of the wires.

Do the same with all the petals while leaving the ready ones in the water.

When that's done, take the center rose and attach the wire petals to it one by one. Tape the wires together using floral tape when it's too much to handle.

Keep on building until it has become one big rose.

Put artificial leaves at the sides to make it look like a real rose and secure the leaves with copper wire.

Most people would tie ribbons to this bouquet but to add more interest to it, we added a string of pearls and wrapped rose petals to the glameria stem and secure them with copper wire also.