DIY: Flowers

I've mentioned my resistance to paying a florist for something I can do myself in previous posts (for centerpieces here and here; and for boutonnieres here) and this philosophy will carry me through the creation of my bouquet as well. Although I have nothing against florists since they do some amazing work and who are usually far more creative than myself when it comes to arranging flowers ... we just don't have it in the wedding budget to have 15 centerpieces of cut flowers or pay $100 for my bridal bouquet when I could buy the flowers at cost and arrange them myself.

When we first got engaged, I was panicked about how much it would cost to get centerpieces made because I have rather expensive tastes when it comes to fresh, cut flower centerpieces until I realized that I didn't need to have a florist. Though it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize it, I didn't need to pay someone that much money and though some family members still disapprove of the idea, I'm determined to pull it off. As much as the wedding industry would like to convince us that florists and $2,500 worth of flowers will make or break out wedding day, it simply isn't true.

And to insert a little humor into this discussion, I laugh every single time I watch this video ...



Thankfully, the style of bouquet that I've fallen in love with falls more within the hand-picked look than the structured arrangements of more formal weddings. Since hand-picked bouquets are supposed to look ... well, hand-picked, it should be less stressful to create this style of bouquet whereas if I wanted a bouquet of 25 red roses in a perfect circle, I'd most likely be forced to pay a professional to create that for me.


And for other brides like myself there are tons of resources both online and in wedding magazines for those looking for a little guidance throughout the process. Luckily, I've found some wonderful tutorials online and my favorite of the bunch includes my favorite flowers ... dahlias.

From Design Sponge comes this tutorial which chronicles the journey to create a casual picnic-style bouquet from flowers purchased at a local farmer's market. Unfortunately, I'm not as lucky as the blogger who made this tutorial as they are very few farmer's markets in my area dedicated to flowers or which even feature a decent selection of flowers. Because of this, I've decided to order the flowers from a local flower shop so I can make sure to get the flowers and colors I really love.





I am 100% in love with this bouquet mainly for the dahlias and the colors used, though I'll be leaning more towards purples than pinks. And although I know it'll be a lot of work and probably cause more frustration than I'll need during the last week of wedding prep, I think it'll be worth it to have a bouquet entirely customized to me.