Making your own DIY wedding flowers for your own big day is not as hard as it may seem. Get beautiful blooms for less thanks to these top tips from the Covent Garden Academy of Flowers…
Choose your colours
Carefully select your roses in your chosen colour scheme. To make sure they remain in perfect condition throughout the special day, remove all the leaves and thorns. Cut the bottom of the stems at an angle of 45 degrees and immediately stand in water. Keep in a cool place until you’re ready to make your dream bouquet.
Finishing touches
As well as a selection of roses, you need to make sure you have the accompaniments and finishing touches like foliage, crystals, pearls, ribbons and so on. Condition the foliage in the same way as the flowers, remove the lower leaves, trim the stems and stand in water.
Start making
Hold your first rose upright in front of you about 10cm down, and add another at an angle, then a third, holding them together firmly.
Add a few more roses to form the base of your
beautiful wedding bouquet.
Bit by bit
One by one, add more roses and any other flowers or foliage of your choice. Turn the bouquet a little each time you add a stem, always at an angle spiraling in the same direction. Aim to achieve a round, slightly domed shape.
Do you like it?
Stand holding the wedding bouquet in front of a mirror to make sure you have the desired shape, adding extra stems where necessary. Don’t worry if the heads of your flowers are not all even; you can always adjust this by gently easing them up or down by their stems until you have the desired effect.
Time to tie
When you are happy with your design, keep holding the stems tightly and tie the bouquet with raffia or string to hold firm. Cut the stems to an even and desired length. You might find it easier to pull the stems together slightly to cut them.
Decorate the stems
Add an attractive ribbon, by wrapping around the stems to hide the string. You can then pin in place, tie in a beautiful bow, or simply leave hand tied. Keep flowers in water until required and then dry the stems with paper towels. There you have your beautiful floral bouquet!
