You know that feeling you get when you’re sitting at work, looking out the window wishing you could be doing anything else but what you are doing at that precise moment? Well, I have been having that feeling for months now and I knew I wanted to do something else but just didn’t know what. I thought about the things I did in my spare time which included workouts, reading, DIY projects ( occasional sewing, paintings, cooking, arranging faux flower bouquets) then it dawned on me… Why am I not arranging real floral bouquets? Alas, my light bulb moment.
I have loved flowers since I was a little girl. I would always pick them while walking home from school and dry them between my diary pages. I had a collection of them; all kinds of flowers and so many colors they made me smile every time I saw them. I would make arrangements for my mom, my dad, brothers, everyone in my family literally ? and it always made them smile; I loved that. I loved that I had the ability to make someone smile with something so minimal yet incredibly detailed.
Anyway, fast forward to 2018, my brother starts dates this super sweet and talented girl; Laura. She has a flower tattoo arm sleeve that I’m immediately drawn to. (She probably thought I was crazy!) She shares with me her love for nature and we bond over cocktails, coffee, and flowers among other things. She mentions she wants to start her own floral business and wants me to join. I was super thrilled since I literally was just thinking of doing something else with me life so I immediately accepted.
Our first gig: A Wild Flower Wedding.
Laura’s friend was having a Back yard wedding and needed flowers. She had a specific color pallet which included mauves, burgundy and pinks. She wanted Dahlias and Sunflowers in her bouquet no exceptions! Laura and I went to work. We needed to make 1 bridal bouquet, 5 bridesmaids bouquets, one throw bouquet, 3 decorative floral displays, and 15 boutonnières. Holy shit we had work to do!
Ordering Flowers Was The Easy Part
We ordered them weeks in advance and made sure to order extra’s just in case. I figured it would be kind of like ordering food for a party, it’s best to have extra than not enough.
We purchased everything we needed including pins for the boutonnières, burlap twine, floral tape, trimming sheers and all of the floral gadgets needed for prepping the florals. We removed them from their packaging and let them breath and open up; unfreeze so to speak for a several minutes; then, it was time for our creative juices to start flowing and boy they were flowing. Laura started with the bridal bouquet as it would be the biggest. The bridesmaids bouquets would be mini versions of the bridals bouquet.
Floral Bouquets Should Look Beautiful From The Front And From The Back
Imagine a floral bouquet that looks good when you look down at it, and you flip it around and the “back” is bare without any flowers just greens and stems….yeah not super appealing, especially if you are walking down the isle. Wouldn’t you want your guests too indulge in their natural beauty also? Well we made sure to put together all of the bouquets with an even placement of flowers and greens. We would combine a small batch and tape it together, then add another bunch and tape it together, until we had a decent thickness and weight to the bouquet then taped all of it together to secure all the stems and flowers. We then started wrapping the stems with the burlap twine. The twine was on the thinner side so we wrapped it tightly and close to cover up all of the floral tape. Once we reached the end of the twine, we cut it and secured it to the stems with a pearl ended needle, and trimmed the stems to make them even and as flat as possible.
We did similar steps for all of the decorative pieces and for the boutonnieres to make everything look like similar variations of the bridal bouquet. We saved single stemmed florals for the bar table decorations which we placed in tall vintage jars which really made the entire party come together. You never think about how much florals in an event make an impact on the visual flow of the entire party.
Many More Events To Come
The entire process was exhausting but so worth it. So much labor and time, and creativity went into the process and we never felt more at ease and comfortable with the outcome and process. We were happy and honored to be trusted with such an important task for a once in a lifetime day and we cannot wait to do it again!
Have any of you considered making a floral bouquet? Or even doing an entire wedding event? Feel free to comment below! Let’s chat about it!
