DIY Wedding Flowers-Take 1

I think I always knew I was going to have a DIY wedding.  Its who I am...not only do I love to craft...I tend to micromanage so at the end of the day, I'd rather just do it the way I want.

My wedding flowers are no exception, not only do I love arranging flowers, but I knew I wanted real flowers, and so I did some research and found a local flower farm that sells mixed blooms by the bucket.  So, to see what sort of blooms they would have in season, what sort of colors and mixtures we could come up with and most importantly, what sort of tools and time we needed, I drove to Elida, picked up a bucket and got to play.

Here are some shots of the flower adventure.

Bucket-o-blooms

Our bouquet attempts: I really wanted to focus on the brightest flowers in pinks and oranges.

   
So the two examples above I took zinnas and dahlias and combined them with this really pretty filler flower for little accents (which of course I don't know the name of) and we were pretty happy with the results.

My major recommendation is get good tools, I had a good pair of gardening shears which were great, but I think I'm going to invest in a stem stripper before the big day, and do not...I mean it DO NOT, use floral tape from the Dollar Store, seriously that stuff stuck all over me and NOT on the flowers.  

We also tried our hand at a few boutonniere designs to see if it was difficult or if we needed to call in the experts...please not my fiance wrinkled his nose at basically all of these.  Please note my mom's non-existent lapel for scale.  

My fiance didn't like the ones that "looked like thistle" so we'll probably end up with something more simple and natural like this (with orange flowers of course). 

So my biggest notes for DIY flowers, try before you commit, Mom and I took apart and rearranged the above bouquet and these boutineeres 5-6 times in the span of just two hours, so I think I'm going to be doing some "fun" downtime flower arrangements the next few months just for practice. 

Buy what's in season, you get the cheapest flowers this way, I love peonies but there is no way I'm going to be able to get them in September, accept this and move on, your flowers will be beautiful and everyone is looking at you (the bride) anyway. 

Remember that flowers are natural, that means they're not perfect.  The flowers are NOT going to match the exact shade you picked out for your bridesmaids and they're not going to be perfectly round or full.  In this case, they might also come with bugs (we found a huge stinkbug in one) cause they're organic...so be prepared. 

Admit it if its too much, for example, I know I'm not going to end up doing all these flowers myself, I'm going to accept some help, which means that some of them aren't going to be QUITE as perfect as mine...and that's ok too.  People want to help because they love you and they're excited to share your day with you....so smile, nod, and pop the champagne!