DIY Wedding Flower Bouquets & Accent Flowers ...With some Talented Help!

Oh wedding flowers.  You normally cost way too much money! Hubby and I wanted to keep our wedding budget as low as we could so I knew going the traditional florist route for flowers would NOT be in the plan for use!

Here's what we decided to do instead: 

-The only live flowers we had in the entire wedding were the bouquets.  I think boutineers are a little tacky. My mom said she didn't need a corsage. I made the flower girl petals out of fabric. I decorated the church with fabric flowers. The centerpieces at the reception were made from tissue paper. So really, all we needed was bouquets!

-I'm all about DIY, but flower arranging isn't quite my thang. Luckily, one of my old roomates from college Erin (and dedicated blog reader!) has experience working in a florist and she offered to make the bouquets the day of the wedding if I gathered the supplies! Here's a close up shot taken after the bouquet making party:

 -I used hot pink roses for the bridesmaids and white roses for my bouquet.  I got the hot pink roses from Costco - a hundred flowers for right around a hundred buckaroos. It worked out great only after a minor scare that the flowers were stuck in Equador due to the Mardis Gras holiday.  After a little hyperventilating and angry concerned customer service phone calls, everything was sorted out and they got here on time.

(Wedding photo sneak peak! Still hoping to get my copies this week :) )

-I got the white roses from the local grocery store - just pre-ordered them to make sure they would be in stock.  They were on sale when I picked them up too - I got two dozen for $30! In hindsite - I should have done a litttle more research for my flowers.  The roses I got were more of a cream and my dress was white and not cream. Wasn't my favorite match, but not something that really mattered at the end of the day :) 

Did you notice those little silver and purple flowers sticking out? They were my only DIY contribution to the bouquets :) 

  I didn't want to just have roses, but didn't want to shell out a bunch more mulah for some accent flowers. 

Unfortunately these little buggers took forever to make and it was getting down to the last-minute wedding crunch so I did not take pictures of the process.  Here is a picture an elementary-age kid drew of the process though: (ok soooooo I actually drew it. please don't judge me....I craft better than I draw haha)

Basically I cut out a bunch of little square with left over fabric from my pew decor flowers. After they were cut into squares it was easy to free hand cut the flower shape. I burned the edges of the little flowers so they would curl up a little bit and not fray. Then I cut a tiny hole in the middle of the flower and set aside to make the stem. The stem was made with a long strand of wire: string a crystal onto the middle and then bend the wire past the bead and twist it around itself all the way down. String the flower onto the stem and put a little dab of hot glue on the back to secure.  Voila! I little accent flower to add in your bouqeut.

Whew? Got that? I thought they were a fun little touch to break up the roses.

Thank you Erin (and Kristen and Caitlin too!) for your bouquet help. I think total I spend around $175 for all my wedding flowers and supplies. Good deal to me!

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