Brooch Bouquet
Bryant and I had discussed potential wedding dates when we were talking about getting engaged. Did I mention that I’m a planner? 😉
My sister was getting married the following May and we knew it would be after hers and we didn’t want them too close together because God Bless our family and friends that travel and attend all the events that go along with weddings. Football season was also NOT AN OPTION for this Bama fan so that left us with December (unless we wanted to wait much longer and we were already looking at over a year). I have mentioned this before but I LOVE LOVE Christmas time. It made sense for this Christmas-lover to have a Christmas wedding!
Once we picked the December 15th date and I started visualizing a Christmas wedding…my imagination and pinterest wedding board exploded.
I had seen the brooch bouquets on pinterest and knew I had to have one! I thought they were perfect for a winter wedding! Sparkly and classy like Christmas time and like me (I like to think) 😉
I read every DIY brooch bouquet tutorial I could find online, collected brooches throughout the year, bought all the supplies and got to work! There are several different styles of brooch bouquets but I picked one with flowers underneath to take up the negative space and one that suited my style.
I didn’t have a blog at the time so I didn’t photograph or record all the steps but you can find tutorials online! I’ll summarize the first steps for you:
- Gather supplies (brooches, fake flowers, wire, pipe cleaners, floral tape, wire cutters)
- Wrap the brooch securely with wire and pipe cleaners creating a sturdy stem for the brooch
- Wrap the wire/pipe cleaner stem with floral tape
- Repeat steps 2 and 3 for ALL the brooches
- Hold the fake flowers and start arranging the brooches on top of the fake flowers
This is where I had trouble. I have zero experience with floral arrangements and could not seem to get all the fake flowers and brooches to fit in one hand. I ended up recruiting my florist to finish my bouquet after spending probably 10 hours attempting it. If you live in Madison/Huntsville Alabama – Lisa Akins from Decreations was a God-sent! I kept adding things to her plate as my wedding got closer and she took them and did better than I imagined! I definitely recommend her work – just wait until you see my bouquet! Plus she is just so sweet, I just loved working with her!
Here are a few tips I learned the hard way:
- Make sure you use a thick/strong enough wire that they are sturdy stems. I had to go back with better wire to reinforce mine.
- Make sure your stems are long enough to go all the way into the stems of the flowers to. I had to go back and re-do some stems that were too short to stay put in the base of the arrangement.
Here are the wonderful things about brooch bouquets, in my opinion:
- They sparkle in the dim lighting of the ceremony and reception
- They last forever, it is displayed in our house in a vase and if I ever have a daughter that might want to use it, she could.
- It was sentimental – I had brooches that were my grandmothers and received some as gifts from family members and friends.
- It was no more expensive than a real floral bouquet would have cost me and could potentially be cheaper depending on prices of brooches and if you succeed in doing it yourself
- It was something different!
Look how beautiful it turned out!!!! This is one of my favorite details of my wedding!
My grandma passed away in July before our wedding. She was always doing some sort of crafty projects (I wonder where I get it from? ) and one of her recent hobbies was making these angel bookmarks with beads on chains. I never used it as a bookmark but I love that I was able to use it on my bouquet. Although she wasn’t physically at the wedding, I know she was with me on my wedding day! She was my angel!
Bouquet: Decreations
Photography: Megan Forehand Photography and Simply Bloom Photography