DIY Bridal Bouquet

As with the bridesmaids pomanders, we chose to use silk hydrangeas for my own personal bouquet. I though a pomander might have been awkward for me to walk down the aisle with, so I opted for a more traditional hand-tied bouquet. I chose ivory hydrangeas and decided that it would be best to keep it as simple as possible.

Originally I had planned on the addition of purple berries to this bouquet, however when placed it looked like the flowers had measles! The addition of a few purple and yellow hydrangeas were just as bad, and Dave and I both agreed that the bouquet would be best as-is with just the ivory hydrangeas and green leaves.

I used 5 stems of flowers, which I arranged so they formed a full, round ball and secured with green floral tape. The leaves were places using floral wire and hot glue, and the bouquet was finished using ivory and purple ribbon wrapped around the stems.

Like the pomanders, the bouquet looks professional and real, compliments my dress, and goes well with the elegant mountain theme. I think a lot of people expected us to go with a more busy, wild-flower like bunch-type bouquet, but this is one thing I wanted to be somewhat traditional about.

I don't want things that distract from the mountain backdrop, so this seemed quite appropriate and I'm thrilled with both the result, and the fact that nobody has to be put on 'flower duty' the weekend of the wedding!

DIY Pomanders

I loved the idea of making pomanders for my bridesmaids, feeling that they offered both something elegant, and something unique.

After some thought, we decided to use silk flowers for the majority of our floral arrangements for several reasons:

a. Cost. Silk flowers are substantially cheaper than real ones, and hiring a florist was not an option for our budget, not to mention hard to justify.
b. Storage. It would be really difficult to have to care for, and store real flowers and keep them pristine before the actual wedding.
c. Silk flowers can be arranged ahead of time instead of the day before, or of the wedding.

This week at Michael's they had all of their spring stems 50% off, and since hydrangeas were one of our top picks it was the time to buy. Michael's had beautiful hydrangea stems in several colors, and we chose purple, green, and yellow to make the pomanders with.

Once we got home, I started making the first pomander and quickly realized our mistake: I used up almost every stem (of 15 we bought) on what quickly became a large, 12 inch diameter ball of flowers. Much to big, not to mention heavy and way to quick to use up too many flowers!

The styrofoam balls were 6", and I should have used much smaller ones. So, Dave and I went to Michael's and picked up 15 more hydrangea stems to start over with. I am also thinking I should be able to re-use the offending pomander flowers on smaller balls!

To make the pomanders, I poked a bamboo skewer through the center to create a straight hole for the ribbon to pass through. I used floral wire like a large wire threader to pull the ribbon through the foam ball, and then wrapped the ends up and around and secured them with hot-glue.

I cut each bunch of hydrangeas off the stem and created piles of each color of hydrangeas. I used each stem to poke a hole in the styrofoam with, which I then filled with a dab of hot glue and the replaced the stem. The color of the flowers are placed randomly throughout the ball, which lends to our elegant mountain wildflowers theme.

The flowers look amazingly fresh and real, and will hold up in the July heat without wilting!

DIY Flower Girl Dress

I wanted to do something special for our beautiful 8 year old flower girl and decided to make her dress. After shopping around, I found that most 'flower girl' dresses are poofy, frilly nightmares really intended for those of the toddler variety. Rather, I wanted something simple and elegant for our very mature and sweet attendant, and decided to model her dress after mine.

The gown started as three yards of ivory silk (yes, silk! I found a great sale on it and love the way it drapes and photographs) dupioni, 3 yards of cream lining, and a yard of purple polyester dupioni (the same fabric we'll be using to make the bridesmaid gowns).

The pattern itself was very simple, and is a standard, round neck tank style a-line sundress. I modified the pattern so that the back of the bodice would close as a v shape, not round.

Because I was working with silk, I took extra care to trace and cut the pattern as perfect as possible, and used sharp scissors to keep the edges from fraying.

Once the dress itself was constructed, I worked on the sash. I originally made a sash out of a purple charmuese, but once we had decided on the dupioni I changed it so it wouldn't clash with the bridesmaids. Changing it actually inspired me to make it more like the sash on my dress, and I think that the result is so much nicer than what I had originally created!

The photo to the right is the original sash. Above and below (left) is the new one, that closely models mine without being an exact match. To make the
new sash, I sewed two long tubes that would cross each other in the front, inverted them, and ironed them flat.

I also made the sash tails by creating a pattern on tracing paper, sewing the edges, inverting it, and again ironing it flat.

I pinned the bodice part of the sash to the dress and tacked it on from the inside; the tacks don't show because they are hidden by the lining! The sash tails will be attached to the gown with snaps, and the bodice part will close with buttons. This finish work will be done by our Flower Girls family, because we want to make sure that the dress fits her (she lives in another state) before sewing in the zipper or cutting the sash to fit.

I cannot wait to see her in this dress! Other finishing touches will include a row of ivory bridal buttons down the back of the bodice (which will close with button loops) and a small crinoline specially made just for her (the skirt is very full in this pattern and to make it more formal I wanted to fill it out).