Wedding Flowers

I know what happened.  You spent an extra $2,000 on your wedding gown than you had budgeted for.  I mean you had to, right?  Otherwise you wouldn’t have been happy on your wedding day wearing the second choice gown.  But now you have to make some cuts somewhere else in the wedding budget, like the flowers.  You’re thinking of doing them yourself, but do you know how to make wedding flower arrangements?

Personalized Wedding Favors

Making flower arrangements for wedding ceremonies is not easy, which is why most people hire a professional floral designer.  Flower wedding arrangements are time consuming, too, and if you plan to use fresh flowers, then you can’t make your arrangements until the night before or the day of your wedding.  Will you have time?  Making your own flower arrangements for wedding can be done, if you know how to make it work.  Here are some tips for making wedding flower arrangements.

Get Help
Don’t try to do your wedding flower arrangements alone, there’s no way you will have time on your wedding day to spend on making wedding flower arrangements.  Make it one of the jobs of the bride’s maids to help with the wedding flower arrangements.  If you have friends who are not in the wedding party, give them the important job of making your flower wedding arrangements.

Get Ideas
Gather your helpers and give them each $20 and a disposable camera.  On a Saturday morning, when there are a lot of weddings going on, tell everyone to scatter and go to hotels and popular outdoor wedding spots to find weddings that are being set up.  Make sure they ask permission to do so, and then ask them to get pictures of their favorite wedding flower arrangements.  If they don’t have any luck finding weddings, they can go to the floral shops and let the owner know that you are searching for a designer and ask to take a few photos of her designs to present to you.  Then with the $20, stop on the way back at a craft store and pick up one or two magazines or books about wedding flowers and one flower arranging tool.

Choose Your Favorites
Take the cameras to a one hour photo shop and take the girls out for a cocktail while you’re waiting.  When the pictures are ready, find an empty table where you can spread out the photos and magazines and start to choose your favorites.  Plan on spending at least an entire day on this, maybe more.

Practice, Practice, Practice
Once you know the wedding flower arrangements you want to make, you and your help will need lots of practice.  This is a good time for more cocktails and more wedding flower parties.  Keep it fun and not a chore and you and your friends will be happy to spend the time you need to perfect your wedding flower arrangements.  This is the time to use those tools and how-to books your friends picked up at the craft store.  Silk flowers are okay for most practice sessions, but they aren’t exactly the same when decorating.  At least one practice party should use fresh flowers.

On your wedding day, you will be confident that your helpers will know how to make wedding flower arrangements that will be perfect for your special day, and you will have saved enough to feel good wearing that number one choice gown!

References:
About.com: Interior Decorating; Make Your Own Wedding Flower Arrangements and Bouquets
J R Roses: Something to Think About
The School of Professional Floral Design; Wedding Flowers; Published by Professional Career Development, Inc.; 1994