First Glimpse at My Wedding! My Bouquet and How I Made It

As some of you know I was married on May 24 of this year. The day was beyond beautiful and I will be sharing photos and how-to's with you over the coming months, but first I wanted to show off my gorgeous flowers.
My bouquet!
©2014 Mallory Frazier Photography
Like many aspects of my wedding, I did the flowers myself - from centerpieces to my bouquet to boutonnieres. There are a few surefire ways to make your wedding flowers look gorgeous and be almost effortless. I recommend sticking to a few flowers or types of greenery. I chose Lamb's Ear from my mothers garden, Foxtail Fern from an existing plant we had (which we happened to receive as a favor from another wedding), and blush peonies from the amazing Fiftyflowers.com.

Keeping the different types of flowers or greenery in your wedding to a few types will drastically cut your costs. Another mistake I see DIY brides make is having way too many colors going on in her bouquet and centerpieces. Unless you're a pro, stick to your palette, or stick to tried and true color combos. Another good rule of thumb is to have one main color and two accent colors. The amazing textures of leaves and flowers make it really hard for even a monochrome bouquet to be boring, and it will undoubtedly look more sophisticated then a bouquet sporting a rainbow of flowers.

My peonies arrived carefully packaged.  Fifty Flowers customer service kept me updated on their arrival time and how to care for them.
Once I had my flowers and greenery gathered up, I began making my bouquet and my bridesmaid's bouquets.  Our bouquets were the same except that mine was larger.  I also had ready a few buckets with water and flower food* on hand to store the bouquets until we were ready for them.

Remove excess leaves from your flowers and greenery.  This will allow moisture in the plant focusing on the buds and blossoms, not on leaves. You will also need a few inches of bare stem for wrapping your bouquet.

Begin composing your bouquet.  Whenever I arrange flowers, I compose them in my hand first, before I start to trim stems.  Once you have your bouquet or arrangement how you want it, then you can secure the base and trim the stems evenly.

Once I was happy with a bouquet, I secured the stems in place with floral tape* and snipped the stems even at the bottom.
For my bouquet, which was thicker, I secured it with wire* before wrapping it in tape.  Next, starting slightly above the tape so it is not visible, begin wrapping your ribbon around the stems. You can use a pin to hold it in place at the top while you wrap.
Once the tape was completely covered by ribbon*, I secured the ends of the ribbon by making just a small stitch with a needle and thread.
The finished product!  Keep your bouquets in a cool dark place with fresh water (I added flower food to mine) until you are ready to use them.
©2014 Mallory Frazier Photography
I couldn't have been happier with my bouquet.  The peonies from Fifty Flowers lasted so long, I used them to decorate my house and they lived for another whole week.
*Supplies: Wilton Gum Paste Wire and Tape
                30 Quart Cut Flower Food
                May Arts 3/4-Inch Wide Ribbon, Pewter Velvet
               50 Blush Peonies from fiftyflowers.com
                Lamb's Ear from our garden
                Foxtail Fern from our plant
A huge thanks to Fiftyflowers.com who provided the peonies for my wedding