Do-It-Yourself Round Wedding Bouquet

Can you imagine spending $1,000 on flowers? It's possible if you are planning a wedding. The average wedding costs $10,000 with 8 to 10 percent going toward your flowers. That is $800 to $1000, a lot of money just for one little part of your wedding.

However, you can make a simple round bouquet that can be used for a bridal bouquet or a bridesmaid bouquet. It can be customized to fit pretty much any choice of flowers and color scheme.

Choosing Your Flowers

By the time you are ready to choose your flowers, you should already know the colors you and the wedding party will wear. If you can, take fabric samples shopping with you. This will help you find flowers that coordinate with and complement the colors of your wedding dress and attendants' clothing.

When selecting your flowers, you will want an assortment of flower sizes and shapes, not just one type of flower. You want shapes that are different, yet still complement each other. The same goes for color. If your attendants are wearing pink dresses, choose several shades of pink flowers that complement each other and the dress. They don't have to be exactly the same shade because then they would all blend together and blend with the dress. At the same time, you don't want them to be too different or to clash. If you have light pastel pink dresses, you don't want hot pink or fuchsia flowers. You will want soft shades of pink. The same goes for the bride's dress. If the bride is wearing white, you do not want ivory or cream flowers. You will want white flowers in the bridal bouquet and in the attendant bouquets.

You will want larger flowers like roses, rosebuds, carnations and lilies, whatever you choose. You should make sure to purchase at least eight of each main flower per bouquet you are making. You don't want to run out. It's better to have too many, and extra flowers can be used for corsages, boutonnieres and the throw bouquet. Make sure to purchase greenery, like ivy, and filler flowers like baby's breath, lily of the valley or miniature rose buds. The greenery and filler flowers are used to add background and fill in gaps and empty spaces between your main flowers so your bouquet will appear full.

Other Bouquet Materials

You will need the following items to assemble your bouquet:

• A bouquet holder for each bouquet
• A bouquet stand or something to put the bouquet in to hold it while you arrange the flowers
• Flowers
• Greens
• Wire cutters
• Scissors
• Floral tape and floral wire
• Accessories, such as ribbon, lace, tulle or beads
• Hot-glue gun and glue sticks to attach ribbons and beads or to fix any flowers that may fall apart.

To arrange the bouquet, first place your bouquet holder in the stand. Make sure it is on a level surface and the holder is straight. Envision what you want your bouquet to look like. Start by placing flowers against the holder and getting an idea of how you want to place them. Put different flowers next to each other and see how they look together.

Then determine how large the bouquet should be. For a regular round bouquet, the stems should be cut to around six inches or less. Start cutting your flower stems off the bushes. Start at six inches and adjust from there. It is better to cut them too long than too short.

Arranging the Bouquet

The first flowers you want to put in the arrangement are four of one of your main flowers, such as a large rosebud. Put them along the outer edges of your holder where they end up looking like an evenly spaced cross. You can also place greenery behind each of these first four flowers. Then, take one large focal flower and place it dead center in the middle of your holder and in the center of the cross.

Now you can decide which flowers to use next. Work out from the center, and take four more main flowers, shaping them around the center flower into a square. They should be angled out toward the four cross flowers and just below the center flower. When you look at your arrangement from the side, it will look like you have three layers of flowers. Fill in around those four flowers with four other flowers on the same layer. They will be placed on top of the first four flowers that made the cross. They will be cut a little shorter and should not cover up the first layer.

Go back to the first layer, the outer layer where you started with the cross of flowers. Fill in around the edge. Depending on how much space you have between flowers and the size of flowers you are going to use, you can either put one or two flowers between each of the first four.

At this point, you will have all of your main flowers in your bouquet. Tweak them to your liking. From the front and side, your bouquet should appear to be round. If not, adjust the length of the flowers, pushing them farther in the holder or pulling them out as needed to get the round appearance. Once that is done, you can fill in any gaps and empty spaces with your greens and filler flowers until you have your desired appearance and fullness.

Don't get frustrated if the first time it doesn't come out right or you don't like how the flowers look together. Experiment with different flowers, keep trying and you'll get the hang of it.

Once you are done with your bouquet, you can add accessories. You could have some ribbon or beads around the holder, hanging down. You could also place ribbon, beads, tulle or lace into the bouquet around the flowers for extra fullness. It's all up to you, your preference and your creativity. When you are done you should have a beautiful wedding bouquet.