Your wedding bouquet is much more than a bunch of beautiful flowers. It’s what you’ll hold as you walk down the aisle to marry your person: it’ll be part of your look, add to the magic of the moment, and feature in your photos forever.
Many people opt to make their own bouquet so they can express their creativity—and ensure that it turns out exactly the way they want it. Plus, walking down the aisle with something you made yourself can add even more meaning to the moment.
But if you’ve never made a bouquet before, where should you start? Don’t worry—we’ve broken down the process for you, step by step. Trust us, it’s much easier than you think!
Contents
Design your bouquet
Find your supplier
Ready your tools
Start arranging
Add finishing touches
Trim the stems
Store your bouquet safely
Wrap your bouquet
1. Design your bouquet
First, you need to decide which flowers you’re going to use and in which colours.
Traditionally, bridal bouquets are white or follow a neutral palette (think beige and cream) with a splash of colour. Here, soft pastels like pink and purple are a popular choice. But there’s no rules: you can go for whatever colours you like!
Creating a Pinterest board is a great place to start. Save designs that you like and think about why you like them: is it the colours? The arrangement? Or a particular flower you keep seeing? You can also search for suggested colour palettes (for example, “modern wedding palette”) to get your inspiration flowing. It can help to choose one main colour or flower to build the rest of the bouquet around.
Consider what sort of style you want the bouquet to have: modern and minimal? Dreamy and romantic? For the former, you might choose one or two different types of flowers, while for a richer bouquet you might have over five plus a few varieties of greenery. We’d suggest thinking about which flowers will be in season when you get married as well.
And don’t forget about foliage! Having some leaves or branches among the flowers can look really beautiful and add a rustic, natural feel to the bouquet. This is optional of course, but it’s something to think about.
2. Find your suppliers
Now that you know which flowers you want to use, you need to find a supplier that sells them.
This step is essentially desk research. You’ll probably be doing a lot of Googling, unless you’re lucky enough to have family or friends who are growing the right flowers in their gardens (and are happy for you to pick them!).
Buying the flowers a few days before the wedding is usually fine, but check with your supplier—depending on the time of year, some flowers might open faster. Ask your florist if you’re not sure.
3. Ready your tools
Okay, now that you’ve got your flowers, it’s time to assemble your tools and prepare your workspace.
You will need:
- Your flowers and greenery
- Secateurs (a good pair of scissors will also do—they need to be able to trim the flower stems)
- Florist’s tape
- Twine
- Ribbon (optional)
- Tissue paper (to lay your flowers on while working)
Lay everything out on a flat workspace so you can access it easily. Spread out the tissue paper and gently put your flowers and greenery on top.
4. Start arranging
It’s time for the fun bit: making your bouquet!
Start by prepping the stems of your flowers and foliage. Remove any leaves, small branches, or buds that will be around where you will hold the bouquet. You’ll wrap these stems together later on.
From here, there’s a few approaches you could take. One is to pick a flower that will be the focal point for the bouquet and to build around it. Holding the stems tightly in your hand, you want to build outwards, gradually adding more flowers and greenery. If it’s easier, you can tie the stems together as you go.
Or you could create the base of your bouquet first—these are elements that will help your main flowers and colours really shine. Think of them as the canvas you’ll add accents to later on. Then, add in your focal flowers before balancing the design with smaller flowers and bits of foliage.
It can help to have some reference photos in front of you for guidance, and to work in front of a mirror so you can see how the flowers look when you’re holding them.
5. Add finishing touches
This step is optional: if you’re happy with your bouquet then there’s no need to add more to it.
But if you want to, you could pull some flowers forward to create depth or add any extra decorations, like charms or ornaments.
6. Trim the stems
Still holding the bouquet tightly in your hand, tie the stems together with some twine and trim them so they’re all the same length. You want them to be long enough so that you can hold them comfortably, but not so long that they’re distracting or risk touching your outfit.
7. Store your bouquet safely
To ensure your bouquet is bright, fresh, and beautiful for your wedding day, put them in water overnight. Make sure you store them in a cool space and out of direct sunlight. A garage or shed would be ideal.
8. Wrap your bouquet
And now for the last step: wrapping the bouquet and creating a handle. You can do this on the morning of your wedding.
Start by drying the stems and then wrap the part you’ll hold with florist’s tape. It might be tempting to wrap all the way down the stems, but this can take away from the natural feel of the bouquet. Instead, you could just wrap the part you’ll hold, making a handle. But it’s totally up to you.
Finally: if you like, you can wrap ribbon over the stems and tie a bow to finish it off.
Your wedding venue
Now that you’ve got your bouquet sorted, have you thought about the venue for your day?
Kindred is a beautiful heritage wedding venue nestled right in the heart of West London. Our interiors have been designed with a modern touch: they’re grand and elegant, yet warm and inviting. Some of our couples have described our spaces as “spectacular”.
And we’ve got spaces to suit celebrations of all sizes, from the most intimate of affairs to bigger parties. Not to mention an on-site restaurant and bars on every floor of our building.
We would be delighted to bring your dream wedding to life. Have a look at our brochure to learn more about weddings at Kindred, take a virtual tour of our building, or get in touch with our events team
