The weekend after Christmas is a tough time to find a florist, especially a budget-friendly one. It's also not practical for them to DIY the flowers, so I'm stepping in to make silk ones!
The bride chose this dress from NY&Co. for her bridesmaids (it's not on their site anymore, my apologies on no link), and I just love it. Cute, pretty, flattering, affordable, and you can definitely wear it again. She's pairing it with an ombre bubble necklace.
My aunt and I had a date at Michael's over the weekend to look at all their flower options. We ended up going with dusty pink and cream hydrangeas for the bouquets, and a dusty pink rose for the boutonnieres. I'm using ivory satin ribbon and lace leftover from the Christmas wedding I did last year to finish off the stems.
These came together really easily.
I started by cutting them stem of the pink hydrangeas into thirds. I bundled two hydrangeas and all the stems together (this helps the handles be a nice thickness), and secured everything with floral tape.
I disassembled the ivory hydrangea into tufts of flowers. I poked six tufts into the pink hydrangeas, and attached them with a glop of hot glue.
Then I hot glued the leaves from the pink hydrangeas to the bouquet, just below the flowers.
I finished off the bouquet with a wrap of ivory satin ribbon.
For the boutonnieres, I cut the stem of a silk rose to an appropriate length. I hot glued a silk ivy leaf to the back of the flower, then attached a pin back to the leaf. This way, the groomsmen can avoid the dreaded corsage pin! I finished it off with a wrap of ivory satin ribbon.
I did the same steps for the corsages, but also included a sprig of the ivory hydrangeas to make them more feminine.
While taking photos of my creations, I realized the edges of the rose were fraying a bit. I melted them back into submission by holding a flame near the edge. The heat melts the polyester just enough to seal up those frayed edges, encouraging the flower to look less artificial. I may or may not have caught the boutonniere on fire for a second...but no harm no foul. I'll be more careful next time!
The interesting thing about these particular bouquets and boutonnieres is that it actually would have been cheaper to make them using real flowers. The bouquets came in around $25 each, and the boutonnieres about $8 each, which is maybe twice what they might cost if I had made them with real flowers (this is because roses and hydrangeas are quite affordable). That said, the family didn't have the resources to DIY the bouquets themselves, so silk flowers it was! (Plus we got a few discounts through coupons and whatnot, so they came in under those estimates, all said and done) Regardless, the flowers for the whole wedding will come in under $200, which is still a bargain compared to a florist!
You might also be interested in the following posts:
Elegant white bouquets and boutonnieres
Budget friendly bouquets and boutonnieres
Blue and white wedding flowers
