Fabric Bridal Bouquet, Part 3: The Project Concludes

This is it! Welcome to the long-awaited final installment, aka PART 3 of how I made my BFF Lauren's fabric bouquet for her wedding last year. I am just going to jump in, so if you haven't yet checked out part 1 and part 2, please read those posts real quick and then come right back!

Finishing the Flowers

I made flowers until I ran out of iron-on adhesive, which meant by this point I was genuinely going bananas. Making flowers had taken over my days, my evenings, my eyeballs, and my brain. And I only had a few days to complete the bouquet before I left to go to Nashville for the wedding week.

I had a few fabrics I hadn't included yet but really wanted to, like this gorgeous luminescent blue that I made a big blue rose out of.

I also had some failed experiments, like this purple blog below, but at this point, I wasn't worried about it because I had plenty of flowers.

As the bouquet was coming together, it was leaning very heavily towards blues, purples, and pinks. I know that Lauren had wanted it to be multicolor, but these were just the fabrics I had from my mom!

I decided the best way to break it up was to take these tiny yellow flowers and instead of putting them on a single stalk like the ones on the left, I would put them on individual wires and scatter them throughout the bouquet.

Some Special Flowers

I was starting to have a serious emotional connection to these flowers, maybe because I was staring at them all day, every day and they were my only friends. I definitely didn't start talking to them, nope, I would never do that... Anyway. I loved this one below so much! It was so simple and beautiful and I think the colors went so well together.

I also definitely didn't start naming the flowers, because I also would never do that. Just. Kidding. I totally named this one, and I called her Luxe. She has gold lamé and pink brocade petals, and a bright purple lamé center. She's def glam.

This one is also special because it is the last scrap of fabric left over from when Lauren and I made dresses to wear to her 21st birthday celebration. We of course altered the pattern to give the dress a low v-back and then made belts that I think were very in line with our personal style at the time.

Stems and Leaves

Finally, all of the flowers were complete and it was time to move on to the greenery!

I made a bunch of trays of leaves in the exact same way I had made the petals - iron on the adhesive, cut out the shapes, spray with Stiffen Stuff, and let dry.

Then I added 1-2 leaves to each flower and wrapped the stem about halfway down with floral tape to hopefully make it look more like a real stem rather than a wire.

I had to come up with a solution for the ends of the wires at the bottom of the bouquet because they were quite sharp and dangerous en masse. All told I think I had about 80 wires, and all those wires together were very... stabby. I decided to use pliers to make a loop in the bottom of each wire, which made the whole thing much safer to be around!

The Ribbon Question

I wanted to include a ribbon around the stems to hide the fact that they were wire and to introduce another design element. I had this incredible placket from an old shirt that I loved, but I worried that it would be too much against the flowers. Even as a maximalist, I know that "too much" is a concept that exists!

Lauren felt the same way that I did, so I decided to bring a backup and we could decide together, in person. I first suggested hot pink because she would be wearing hot pink shoes, but she said that would be, "Too matchy-matchy. Do you have any lime green?"

Did I have lime green?! Not only was the answer to that question yes, but the lime green I had was another sentimental fabric from our past! When we were in high school, we were obsessed with hot yoga and decided to make yoga mat bags that were big enough to also put in a towel. Mine was yellow, but hers was this exact lime green. I had wanted to use it for some leaves, but it just didn't work, so I had a ton of it still.

I decided to prepare the floral fabric just in case, so I took one half and just stitched the ends under with a small hem, and the other half I lined with white so it could be the ties that hang down.

Rhea's Headband

Lauren and her husband had just welcomed their daughter Rhea into the world three months before the wedding (check out the ice cream cone stuffie I made for her 1st birthday present!) and I knew that the 3 of them planned to walk down the aisle as a unit. So, I decided to make Rhea a headband that matched the bouquet. I made three little flowers, attached them to some elastic with a piece of velvet backing to protect her skin from the glue, and left the ends long so that I could attach them together when I saw her and measured her head. I was very nervous about making sure it fit!

The Official Arrangement

It was the morning that I was flying out for the wedding, and it was time to arrange the bouquet. I separated the flowers out into color-coordinating piles so that I could see what I was working with, and got started.

Josh's mom Debbie (who used to work as a florist!) recommended building the bouquet by taking a few flowers for the center, taping them together, adding in a few more, and taping them together, and continuing until the whole thing was assembled.

I think that was a great idea, but for some reason, it wasn't working for me, so I decided to arrange the flowers in a jar, and it felt more like arranging them in a vase. It allowed more flexibility as well, so I was able to start with all the bigger flowers and then scatter the smaller ones throughout, like those individual yellow babies.

How Does One Transport Such an Item?!

Debbie suggested putting the bouquet upright in a small box and stuffing around the stems with tissue (I used some towels and scarves) to prop it up. Luckily, this bouquet is much more resilient than live flowers would be since they couldn't bruise or break or lose petals, but I still wanted it to be packed securely!

Then came the issue of how I was going to get this thing from Wisconsin to Nashville. There was a possibility of a friend coming to pick it up, but she was going to be in town far too early, and seeing as I didn't finish this thing until the morning that I left, it's a good thing we didn't have to go with that plan.

I flew out to Nashville a few days early to hang out, help with wedding and baby things, and for the (BBQ/drag queen) bachelorette party that Lauren had the Thursday before the wedding. Josh drove down just for the wedding weekend, so he was able to bring the bouquet and all of my supplies down in the car and it just worked out SO PERFECTLY!

The Wedding Day

While we all got ready in this beautiful house at the venue, I found an open outlet and glued the ribbon onto the bouquet. It really didn't need any other adjustments, so I was able to hand it off to Lauren and the photographer Andrea, who was so excited about the bouquet that she captured it BEAUTIFULLY! Thank you, Andrea!

And Rhea's headband came out just perfectly! She looked so cute in her ice cream onesie.

Lauren and I have been making projects together, as outlined in this post, for our entire friendship. We actually became close when we put on a dance show during our senior year of high school. She is a huge beader and crafter and we are always sharing or doing our projects together, so to be able to make this for her on such a special day means so much.

I am so honored I was able to be a part of Lauren and Jake's wonderful wedding. It was such a special day!

I hope you have a beautiful rest of your day and thank you so much for being here!

💖, Katrina

Professional wedding photography by Andrea Behrends

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