Beautiful and Simple ~ Rose Bowl Wedding Centerpiece

Turn roses into a fabulous centerpiece. These amazing rose bowls are illustrated by Preston Bailey, an internationally celebrated event designer and wedding planner with clients that include Donald Trump, Middle East Royalty and Oprah Winfrey.

Once you master the basic skills, definitely experiment with different settings to personalize it. For instance, I would make at least 3 of these rose bowls with containers of different sizes to create dimension. Mix and match roses in different colors, or throw in more bowls with floating candles.

Trick of the trade: It’s easier to get the rose petals to line up if the flowers are in full bloom so the petals are flatter and easier to line up, but not so much so that they’re about to turn brown. Make sure you use enough petals in the bowl so that it will be packed enough to withstand transportation without falling apart.

DIY Wedding Party Boutonnieres

I am a big believer of DIY. Unless you are one of the few lucky ones with an unlimited budget, DIY could save you a bundle. Not all DIY projects are created equal. Some are more demanding in terms of skills, time commitment, and timing/logistic. For example, you can’t prepare all 20 of your fresh floral centerpieces a week ahead of time. As you master the skill of creating your own Calla Lily bouquet, here is another video on DIY boutonnieres. With easy to follow instructions and simple techniques, these homemade boutonnieres will be done in a jiffy the day before your wedding.

DIY Wedding Idea ~ Calla Lily Hand-Tied Bridal Bouquet

Most DIY wedding ideas aren’t rocket science, but they do require adequate planning and a little help from friends and family. After all, your focus should be on getting married. So gather ideas, identify people who are dependable and willing, then delegate, delegate, delegate! Certain tasks such as creating centerpiece and bouquet can be intimidating at first, yet totally doable after you understand the basics. In the next few weeks I will introduce more DIY wedding ideas that can be done ahead of time.

I saw a wonderful video by Afloral.com on how to put together a calla lily bouquet. They also carry artificial flowers and ready made silk bouquets at reasonable prices. As stated in a previous post, you may substitute with artificial calla lilies, allowing you to put together your bouquet. A word of caution with artificial flowers, the quality varies greatly with different vendors.

Once you feel comfortable with the basic steps, pick flowers that may suit your color and theme, be original, and have fun.

DIY Underwater Wedding Flora Arrangement – a step by step guide

I can’t say enough about the newest trend in wedding centerpiece – the underwater floral arrangement. It’s trendy, it’s dramatic, and it doesn’t seem too hard to make. Being naturally curious about things in general, I had to learn more about how those underwater floral arrangements are done. Hope this information save you or someone you know a buck or two on wedding centerpiece.

DIY Underwater Floral Arrangement
Almost any flower can be used in underwater floral arrangement, so experiment with different kinds of flowers. The nice thing about this is that it doesn’t use that many flowers for each.

1. The most difficult part about the underwater arrangement is to keep the flowers underwater. To achieve this, it’s best to use a weighted frog. Alternatively, you could push floral pins through sticky poster tape to hold things in place.
2. Once the weight is done, press floral foam into the weight. You could cover the floral foam by wrapping it with large foliage and pin it in place, or cover the bottom of the vase with pebbles.
3. Arrange flowers of your choosing on the floral foam. A stem of orchid or 2-3 calla lilies would look great with a tall cylinder. For smaller vase, push a single gerbera daisy into the foam, or use a group of 3-5 roses to form a ball around the foam. Add foliage as needed.
4. Just add water, and perhaps a floating candle, and viola!

Bridal Beauty Calla Lily

Calla Lily has become very popular to use as the main flower in wedding bouquets and overall wedding decor. As much as I love them, however, I’ve heard from florists that they can be tough to work with. So I asked my husband’s cousin, the florist, who has worked with Calla Lily quite a bit, and her suggestion was surprising. “Use artificial Calla Lilies”, she said, “especially if a non-professional is putting together the bouquet.” The reason? “They are easily marked, and show signs of wear and tear easily.” She also suggested using real foliage along with the artificial Calla Lily. But beware – not all artificial Calla Lilies are up to the task, so choose yours wisely and carefully.

Here are other ways to incorporate Calla Lily into your wedding:

I’ll be posting more links on do-it-yourself Calla Lily bouquets.

Wedding Bouquet – from your neighbourhood Costco

Lately I’ve heard a lot of comments about how expensive wedding flowers are. My standard answer: Checked out Costco.com. After seconds of dead air, and usually some eye rolling, people start to realize this is not a joke. If you or someone you know is talented in floral arrangement, Costco.com may have the answer. They carry an array of flowers that are in season, including Cymbidium Orchids and Calla Lilies.

Costco even offers packages for bouquets and centerpieces.

I posted some pictures a couple of days ago of some DIY floating arrangements. These Cymbidium Orchids and the roses would be perfect candidates for a simple yet totally posh centerpiece. You could save even more if you could find a local wedding rental store that carries the cylinder vase as show in my previous post.

I’m a Costco fanatic, so don’t just take my word for it. Go on, check it out yourself. I know where I’ll go the next time I need flowers.