Making bridal bouquet from your garden cut flowers. Budget wedding idea.

I need to prepare a bouquet for one low budget wedding and since garden style bouquets with fancy flowers remain in fashion this year, I thought why not use my garden flowers. Outside of my window is September and the garden is full of flowers, dahlias, amaranth, zinnia, hydrangea, and for greenery dusty miller. At the request of my bride I shall concentrate on shades of pink and white and light green and silvery greens. Although I have many yellow and orange colors but this is my bride's request. I cut dahlias in advance as they open and bloom very slowly and I store them in the refrigerator. They are perhaps the most delicate flowers. Hydrangea has become hardened already and it's pretty strong so that the likelihood that it will wither in the bouquet has passed. If the hydrangea is cut in the fall it will usually dry out in the same state but it will still look good. At this time I usually cut my panicle hydrangea for dry flower arrangements. I have a couple of orchids from indoor plants and indoor ivy can also be cut for greenery. The bouquet must be done the day before the wedding or in the morning of the wedding day. The stems of all flowers must be cleaned of excess greenery. Since there are many leaves left from the stems of the dusty miller I can also use them. Dusty miller is a rather whimsical plant with respect to moisture and it can wilt if it gets too dehydrated. So I put a small piece of wet cotton wool at the base of the bunch of leaves and wrap everything first with wire and then with floral tape. I will do the same with pieces of hydrangea since the flowers of panicle hydrangeas are very large and it is not convenient and wasteful to use them entirely. Thus using cotton wool and ribbon I will prepare additional flowers for the bouquet and additionally save floral material. When everything is ready I begin assembling. Garden style bouquets do not need to be even or perfectly shaped. Light asymmetry is quite acceptable. At the beginning I need to decide on the size of the bouquet. The larger the plant diameter the lower it is necessary to begin gripping your bouquet and vice versa. The smaller the plant final diameter the higher the grip point should be placed. This is a simple heuristic trick and perhaps one of the most common mistakes a beginner makes. If you make the initial grip immediately high then later it will be very difficult to arrange a bouquet of a larger diameter. You do not need to grip the stems too tightly in your hand. Keep a relaxed grip otherwise it will be difficult to collect the bouquet and your stems might break if the base is firmly squeezed. In the center as a rule following the rules of floral design the largest and most attractive flowers are placed there and this is called the focal point and this means that when people examine the composition their gaze most of all lingers and focuses on these flowers. The focal point flowers do not need to be located in the very center. They can also be in a circle close to the center. Between the dahlias and for filling effect I use hydrangea. Hydrangea fills the space surprisingly well and acts as a pillow, supports and cushions the entire composition. We must not forget about the color balance as well. Evenly mixing flowers of different shades. When large flowers are in their place I begin to arrange small zinnia flowers. A brighter pink shade of will complement the color scheme making the bouquet more attractive. When my hand fills up and the stems become too difficult to hold together I resort to using sticky floral tape. Lightly just one or two turns will keep the flower stems together and help me finish the bouquet. I also use floral tape to secure the flowers on wire because they do not have stems as such and they will easily fall out of the bouquet. And to complete the composition around the circle I fill in the remaining gaps with amaranth and ivy. These flowers will add volume and airiness and style to the finished composition. When the bouquet is assembled I critically examine it, correct it from all sides and only after that do I begin to tighten the flower stems with a ribbon. If this is done when the bouquet is already assembled the contraction does not significantly affect the final diameter of the bouquet since the outermost flowers still remain at an angle. When the handle of the bouquet is pulled together all the stems and the wired stems are fixed. Without cutting off the tape I turn it out with the sticky side out and I wrap the handle so that once again the sticky part is up. And I do this so that when I wrap the handle of the bouquet with satin ribbon this slippery ribbon will not move along the handle and it will not peel off or slip off at the most inopportune moment. I've seen this happen many times at weddings so this is a trick you can do to avoid this problem. If the bouquet is prepared the day before the wedding then the open stems of flowers can be dipped in water in a vase and placed in a refrigerator or cold room overnight.