Bridal Party Bouquets

So Jereme convinced me (it actually wasn't too hard, though I do still have some misgivings about it) that fresh flowers is the way to go for a spring time wedding. I made all the Bridal party bouquets for my first wedding, and I wasn't even really very intimidated by it, though I knew nothing about making such bouquets, and I had never attempted anything like it before. I also, I might add, am not a crafty person. At my first wedding the bride's bouquet ended up costing me around $15 and each bridesmade bouquet cost me between $10 and $12 (the maid of honor's was a little different and so cost a few dollars more). I was determined to not spend more than that this time around, even though I'm using real flowers this time.

Our theme for this wedding is gardens, and even though we're having the actual ceremony in the Church (not in a garden LOL!) the reception will be held at a gardens, with an inside hall and an outside we'll be able to use.

My favorite flowers are lilies, especially Easter lilies, but really any lilies. I love the smell of them, I love the beauty of them. So we definitely wanted to incorporate a lot of lilies into our floral arrangements for the wedding. So, I set about at my first trial of making the bouquets for the wedding. I have a year, so it may seem like I'm starting way too early considering we'll be using alive flowers and can't make them months ahead of time, but the intimidation level was high so I wanted to practice, and lilies are more expensive when they aren't in season. Since it's April now, and they're in perfect season, now is the time to try! Plus it gives me a variety of flowers I'll be likely to find next year at this same time as well.

While Jereme and I were at Publix, we saw a small bunch of flowers, with Lilies in them. They were pink and purple and white and pretty. We went ahead and picked up a small bunch ($4) and then went to walmart and got some floral tape and ribbons and pearl headed pins. A few nights ago I set about to work on attempting to make my first live floral bouquet and this is what we ended up with:

So, it is still a little rough around the edges, but I think I did a pretty good job for a first attempt! I want the Bride bouquet to have more flowers though, probably by twice. at least one more stem of lilies, and possibly incorporating a few small calla lilies in it as well. I am thinking the guy's boutonnieres are going to be mini calla lilies so we need to have some in the bridesmades as well. Also we may try to go with a different color flower, depending on what's available next year. I think we've narrowed the wedding color down to a soft light purple (think lilac). The total cost of this bouquet that I made was less than $5.