To Hold - A Bloom'n Winner!

Monday, as promised, I stopped at the Union Square flower stand to pick up some beauties for another bouquet experiment. This time I was happy to receive 9 stems of peony roses in cream, 15 pinky astilbes, two bunches of sweet peas - one white and one lavender, 7 stems of white wax flowers, a last second grab, and 9 stems of white ranunculuses.

This time I decided to be more organized and systematic. Also since my dress was home, and CK was not, I was able to see how the flowers looked with my dress! One more bonus - the ribbon from our shower gifts was hangin' around so I used to tie the bouquets! No shoe bag this time (we're movin' on uuup...). On the downside I had to do this in the evening, so the pics are a little yellowy. In the voice of Joe from Family Guy - Let's do this!

After cutting the stems and declawing the roses, I spread out the group of flowers I wanted to work with. Starting with three large roses, I built around them with wax flowers and more roses. I then wrapped the bunch tightly with ribbon and trimmed the stems. Take a look at my first trial run!

Not bad. The handle length is a little extreme! Ignoring the lower half, I'd say this trial really shows what I'm capable of as far as bloom arranging goes. I'm no pro but I thought I had some skills! Next, peony roses and astilbes. The picture is a bit blurry - there was some guess work focusing the camera before grabbing the bouquet and sprinting in front of the lens. My socks were soaked from all the water that dribbled onto the floor!

Next, peony roses, sweet peas, and ranunculuses. I realized after making because ranunculuses are so small it was better to place them in bunches of 2-3 instead of one by one so they didn't get lost among the bigger flowers. A little advise from the novice florist!

This round got me over my love of sweet peas. They were hard to work with because they cling together and once again were hardly noticeable. If I am going to DIY, I need easy peasy flowers. I'll leave the sweet peas to the Pros. Here's the same bouquet with wax flowers swapped for the sweet peas.

Alright no holding back now. Time for a big bridal-icous bouquet. All in! Well, all but the sweet peas.

Now this looks bridal! I think we have a winner!

Maybe I can do this after all! I highly recommend seeing flowers first hand before ordering them if you want to DIY. I knew ranunculuses were small, but they were even smaller than I imagined. Also by the end of my experiment my flowers were getting pretty tired and droopy. Practicing ahead of time will hopefully allow me to get the right bouquet made in one shot so the flowers are handled less.

I didn't forget about my bridesmaids! Now, keep in mind this example is smaller than it would be for the big day since I had limited supplies. Here I used the ranunculuses, astilbes, and wax flowers, thinking I could save the roses to make my flowers more 'distinguished'. I am also considering an earlier bouquet of ranunculuses and roses for the 'maids.

Chris even got into the mix when he came home and little centerpieces for me! What a good fiance. As always use your imagination here - picture a small white vase with a smaller opening at the top!

and..

Could work!? The flowers won't be the only element of the centerpieces, just an accent. I might still try to poke some black and white anemones in there, but that could be overkill.

Wedding - we have our flowers. Just in time if you ask me. *Gleeeeee*