DIY: Floral Workshop

Last Saturday for four fun filled hours I was an official floral designer. I met up with a group of brides and planners to learn how to make boutonnieres, corsages and bouquets and had a blast! Karen of Huckleberry Karen Designs holds workshops about every 2 or 3 months on how to DIY: Wedding Flowers.

It was a fantastic learning experience - how to process the flowers (roses are a real pain with all of the thorns) how to hydrate them, and when to buy which flowers so they are at the perfect opening state on your wedding day.

I decided knowing how to create these floral pieces would come in handy as a planner. I have had nightmares about the florist forgetting a bridesmaid's bouquet and suddenly I would have to fashion one out of the centerpieces. So I am now ready to roll with my floral tape and ribbon thanks to Karen.

Karen did mention that as a bride, attempting to do flowers yourself for the wedding is definitely do-able but she warned to get more help than you think you'll need! If your wedding is the ultimate DIY wedding or if you are just attempting to make all the personal flowers, you will need lots of hands - especially on the wedding day. This is where us planners come in handy. Not that we will be your stand-in florist, but we can really help with all of the details you envision.

Here are some before and after photos that lead to my creations:

These are the flowers as is from the SF flower mart.

Here we are processing the flowers.

Above the flowers are ready to go. We have 3 types of roses, spider mums, wax flower and something green, round and cool that I can't remember the name of - I show a close up of it a few photos below.

Here is the start of my boutonniere - the sepals are gone and I am using floral wire to support the stem. There is a method to poking the hole - you can't just poke anywhere.

I use floral tape to combine the waxflower and the rose.

Then comes the ribbon - it's starting to look a little snazzier! To be honest, the ribbon was the most difficult part. Wrapping the end of it took many, many tries.

Ta da! And here it is!

Here is a second one I did using an orchid and the cool little green accent flower (if you know what it is called please help me remember!)

Next we made our bouquets - this was 4 million times more difficult than I thought it would be. I thought mine (above) came out pretty darn ok. My new friend Greg is holding it for me so I can snap an aerial shot of it.

Trying to place each flower so that when all together they looked pleasing to the eye and have a round bouquet shape was quite the challenge.

I used roses, freesia, wax flower and calla lilies. I kept the stems long so I could keep it in water when I got home - but if this was a for a real wedding I would have trimmed them a bit more.

And there they are! Such a fun class. If you get the chance you should check out Karen's blog - one of the coolest things she posts on are the different flowers she uses in each bouquet so you know exactly what flower you are seeing.

Photo source: From Trisha Dean's personal collection