I Did My Own Wedding Flowers! (Including this beautiful DIY rose bridal bouquet)

I did my own wedding flowers! – In this post I’m interviewing a bride who DIY’d all of her wedding flowers! From centrepieces to buttonholes, she did it all herself . In this post she is sharing her secrets on how she made it happen easily, with minimal stress. Including how to DIY a rose wedding bouquet!

Just recently I made the choice to hire some writers to work for this site, (I’m a homeschooling mama with businesses I run after all)! but had a condition – I could only hire writers that had a genuine passion for flowers and growing things. 

So you can imagine how happy I was when Suzanne replied – not only does she love growing things, but she actually took a course to learn how to arrange and DIY her own wedding flowers!

I literally did a happy dance to find out that she DIY’d her own rose wedding bouquet. (It wasn’t just roses, read on to find out what she included in her gorgeous English country-garden inspired wedding flowers)

So this is for all you brides to be who are curious about or maybe planning to DIY your own wedding flowers – the good, bad, and everything you need to know inbetween! But first, a few reasons why you might want to DIY your own wedding flowers!

Should I DIY My Wedding Flowers?

Brides to be often look to DIY their wedding flowers in order to

• Save money
• Add a more personal, creative touch
• Because they love flowers
• To have something fun to do and create that the whole family can take part in
• As a form of creativity and self-expression

However, if you’re considering DIY’ing your own flowers, you also need to remember that it can involve a level of stress (particularly if you don’t have knowledge, or willing friends / family members able to help), can be time-consuming, and ultimately can even end up costing you more money than you save. This is of course, worst-case scenario! But it’s worth considering.

As a newbie to floral design and creation, you might also find yourself limited to what flowers you can use and what arrangements you can make. There’s a reason florists charge what they do! 😉

Finally, you might also want to consider choosing a florist to be able to support small and local businesses, especially if you’re aiming to hold an ethical, sustainable, or green wedding.

I Did My Own Flowers! The Interview

Here’s my interview with Suzanna, a writer from London, who did all of her own wedding flowers, seemingly stress-free! Which will help you in making your choice as to whether or not you should do your own wedding flowers.

Why did you make the decision to create your own wedding flowers?

I did my own wedding flowers, partly for practical reasons – florists tend to be quite expensive, especially in London, and our wedding was on a budget.

Doing my own flowers not only seemed like a way to save money, but also, as I love flowers, like something I could really enjoy doing.

Is It Hard To Do Your Own Flowers For A Wedding?

People were really impressed with the flowers, they said they were really beautiful and said they looked professional – I had loads of compliments and have had more since from other brides too.

One of the things that really struck me was that it wasn’t as complicated as I thought it would be. Certain types of flowers would need a professional but as I wanted something loose and unstructured that kind of look and feel works really well for a bride who wants to do her own flowers.

If another bride was asking me is it hard to do your own wedding flowers? Well, I wouldn’t say it was super simple.

I did do a flower course and learn about the markets etc, so not the easiest thing in the world – but it’s not the hardest either. Making a bouquet is probably a bit easier than you think. I highly recommend taking some sort of a course, even an online one could work, to help you learn how to DIY.

The course has made me more confident with flowers… after my wedding I even said I wanted to be a florist, which I would love to do! It’s definitely become a hobby for me now!

The process wasn’t stressful as I had lots of help, and was actually really relaxing and a lovely thing to do the day before my wedding.

How much does it cost to do your own wedding flowers?

In total I spent about £200 on the bridal flowers workshop, and I think we spent around £150 on the flowers and the accessories.

From the beginning I knew I’d probably do my own wedding flowers. I’d seen loads of beautiful bouquets on Pinterest and as I love flowers, it always seemed like a fun and creative thing to do.

So I went and read a lot of things online, but I started to get a bit disheartened.  Many podcasts talked about how it would be stressful, and the process can seem pretty difficult. So for a while I considered just doing perhaps one part of it, maybe just my own bridal bouquet.

But eventually I decided to do it all myself as I just didn’t have the budget for any of the florists I loved.

How To Prepare Your DIY Wedding Flowers!

I started out by doing a lot of googling at the beginning of the process. But I quickly realised I needed to do a workshop.
Youtube was useful, but I felt I needed some hands-on experience. I learn best with the help of someone experienced, rather than trying to muddle through things by myself!

I decided on the workshop with The London Flower School. Many workshops have quite a formal style or seemed targeted at helping you to become a florist, but the London Flower School offered something different. Their floral style is just beautiful, and you can undertake an afternoon workshop that is based around creating a bouquet.

I really wanted a course that would help me with more of the wildflower, english-country garden bouquet style that I wanted.

What Kind Of Flowers Did You Choose And Why?

Choosing Seasonal Flowers

I got married in October – so I knew dalias would be my main flower, and from there on I would add in colour and texture. I definitely also wanted roses and different types of greenery, though I wasn’t entirely sure on the type or style at the beginning.

As I ended up doing the course the week before my wedding, although it felt a bit rushed, in hindsight it was great as I got to see what flowers were in season! (They even gave me contacts at the flower markets so I could pre-order some of what I needed, which I would never have got or known how to do beforehand otherwise).

Choosing Flower Colors

I didn’t really have a color scheme in mind, I just wanted something that looked nice and in alignment with the style I wanted. The colors ended up being blue, pink, white and deep red, which looked really lovely in the autumn.

I used spray roses – initially I intended to use multiple rose types but after choosing the multiple other flowers I decided to use roses as an accent rather than a feature flower.

DIY English Country Garden Style Bouquet

The bouquets I created were loosely tied, and english garden style. This was down to two things – I love that natural gardeny feel but also because of my skill level!

I don’t think I could have made a tight formal rose bouquet for example, because they take much more skill to arrange.

My bouquet featured roses and was slightly larger than the bridesmaids bouquets, which didn’t feature roses.

There were a few nods to mexico in our wedding design as we used to live in Mexico, so for our centrepieces I wrapped jars in Mexican print fabric and put dahlias in there. I wanted a vibrant and happy vibe so we went for bright yellows, oranges and reds.

Button holes were rosed based, with a little spray of Mimosa and me my mum and my grandma and step dad all sat the night before and had a lovely evening making the buttonholes, which is one of my favourite memories actually.

DIY Wedding Flowers Vs Florist!

Doing your own wedding flowers can save money, but you lose out on that incredible expertise that a professional florist can give you. A professional florist can advise you on how to care for your flowers, remove stress from your day, knows what flowers will be in season and even what flowers can suit your dress type!

For me, the best way was somewhere inbetween! I decided to go to a professional flower school to learn how to DIY my wedding flowers. I got to learn from incredibly talented florists and floral designers, yet still managed to save money on my flowers!

A Course In Wedding Flowers

I loved the website of The London Flower school as soon as I found it! Their flowers had the exact kind of look I was seeking for my wedding, so I was super happy to find they did an afternoon bouquet arranging course. (Check out this one here for something similar).  

I expected to gain some knowledge on how to make flower crowns, button holes and buuttonnieres from the course. What I didn’t anticipate was the other valuable information I gained, such as  like how to pick flowers from a market, understanding seasonal flowers, knowing how to navigate the flower market, etc. In a way this information was even more valuable to me than making the actual flowers!

Learning How To DIY Wedding Flowers, The Proper Way!

It was an afternoon course from 2-5pm, and there were about 6 or 7 other people on the course, along with two teachers. You begin the afternoon with tea and cake in the workshop, which is filled with gorgeous greenery and flowers.

We started with buttonholes, and learned to use hardier flowers and how to store them so they stay fresh for your wedding. You could also opt to create a flower crown, but as I already had an extravagant floral veil I didn’t opt for this.

I also learned how to wire a flower so that a flower with a floppy stem would stay strong and it can hold up better in a bouquet.

To make your bridal bouquet you could choose whatever flowers you wanted – I kind of went a bit overboard here! They literally had so many to choose from!

We were shown us the traditional spiraling technique of making a bridal bouquet- gather the stems, criss cross them so they form a spiral,

But also they showed us other ways so I could achieve a more relaxed formal style.

We ended the afternoon with a glass of prosecco! The teachers are so lovely and it’s great to meet other brides-to-be and hear their plans. The course was about £200;  I initially thought it was a big investment for for a single afternoon!

But there is so much to learn and to gain from the course which makes it such a worthwhile investment. I would highly recommend taking a course for anyone wanting to do their own wedding flowers!

Top DIY Wedding Flowers Tips

I did my own wedding flowers, and here are my top tips to help you do yours!

DO

• Aim to do your flowers two days before your wedding. We did ours on the day before but we were quite tired, especially if you have guests arriving, you might want to ensure you leave time for rest!
• Make sure you do get friends and family to help. I took a few days off work as did my husband and bridesmaid and a friend so we could collect the flowers from the flower market, and my bridesmaid and I prepared them together. The table arrangements took hardly any time at all, but I had a lot of people helping – if I had to to it all alone it would have taken a few days!
• Keep your flowers clean! You’ll store them in buckets of water, making sure they have no dirt or leaves in the water ensuring there is no bacteria making the flowers wilt, and keeping them somewhere reasonably cool  even in the fridge in the height of summer.
• Do get the flowers out about half an hour before you need to leave; lay them on a tea towel so you don’t get drips on your dress.
• Do weigh your decorative jars down with pebbles so they don’t tip over!
• Do purchase spares of every type of flower, as some get easily bashed, broken, or might need replacing.
  

  DON’T

• Be intimidated by the flower markets – all of the people there were so friendly and helpful and didn’t seem to mind we seemed to have no idea of what we were doing!
• Don’t feel you have to have everything planned in advance – I didn’t confirm my colour or flower type until the day before my wedding, when at the flower market!
• If you’re going for a relaxed look don’t worry if your buttonholes aren’t all identical. Use stemtex florist’s tape to secure and then dry them, then attach with a pin

My Step-By-Step-Guide To A DIY Rose Wedding Bouquet

I always knew I’d have roses in my bouquet, although I didn’t actually know they’d end up being the accent flower rather than the feature!

Roses are some of the easiest flowers to work with, once you’ve taken the thorns off.

The stems are hardy and the blooms if they are tightly packed are too, and they can be stored in water, no special treatment required. I chose roses as I think they’re a very romantic flower and help to give a beautiful English garden look. The reason they are so often used in buttonholes is because they have a strong stem. The strong stem helps the buttonhole to stand upright.

The DIY Rose Bridal Bouquet!

1. select your flowers, or at least have an idea of your flower or textures

2. Purchase from florist, wholesaler or even a supermarket! (We here at A Prettier Petal advise you shop local and support small businesses where possible, so plan this out beforehand!)

3. Roses are available all year round, but otherwise choose something seasonal

4. Choose 2-3 main types of flowers and make sure you research your greenery, hold it up against your flowers to see how the colours look (yep, it’s really that simple)!

5. Prepare your flowers as soon as you get home – you can cut the ends of the stem off, or up the middle an inch or two with florists scissors and place in water

6. Remove them the next day from the water, and use the spiralling method to arrange criss-crossing flowers over the top

7. Then turn the whole thing around and repeat the criss cross, but going the opposite way.

8. Tie fairly loosely with twine – loose enough to not cut into blossom or stems, strong enough to hold it’s shape

9. Remove from water and dry properly when ready to use

10. Tie tighter and add ribbon when ready!

Equipment Needed To DIY Your Wedding Flowers

• scissors
• florists wire,
• stemtex (florists tape)
• pins for the buttonholes,
• green ribbon for the bouquet, pink ribbon for the buttonholes,
• collected jam jars,
• fabric to wrap around jars and flower stems if not using ribbon,
• buckets to store your flowers in – buy way more buckets than you think you’ll need to store the flowers! I spent about £20 on buckets alone!

 

That’s it for our interview with the beautiful Suzanne, who I’m so thankful to for sharing her flower story with us!

What about you, are you considering DIY’ing your own wedding flowers? Did these tips help? Let us know in the comments below!