We begin

Little did I know almost 2 years ago that I was about to find a new passion.  The love of my life asked me to marry him and so I began my wedding planning.  Those of you who have been through this or are now going through this know that you can break the bank by the time you are done buying all the "must haves" for your dream wedding.  But what I really discovered is that it can be hard even finding the perfect centerpiece, the perfect bouquet or the perfect anything else.  You want pink and white when zebra or Tiffany are the big themes being catered to.  So what do you do?

Well, if you are the least bit creative, or you have creative friends who love you, you can have the wedding of your dreams no matter when you plan it or how much money you have.  Our budget came in at just a little over $7k.  Sound impossible?  Dry your tears and follow me......

The first thing I started with was my bouquet and my sister's bouquet (she was my only attendant).  We lost both our parents and one brother and wanted a way to have them with us.  Thank goodness someone told me about memory books!  So off to the bookstore we go for two journals.  Then it was a walk down memory lane selecting the pictures and mementos to put in them.  Once that was done it was time to tackle the bouquets.

I didn't want to chance anyone else trying to put a bouquet on those memory books so I started looking at silk flowers.  As luck would have it two of my local craft stores had beautiful silks (don't want to mention names but let's just call them M and HL- you crafters know who they are).  One had beautiful white hydrangea with iridescent sparkles and the other had wild pink orchids.  That's when I knew my theme would be pink and white. 

So how do you make a bouquet with silk flowers that you can attach to a memory book?  It's really not that hard.  Here's what you will need:

• Bouquet holder - I bought mine at the craft store in the wedding department.
• Silk flowers of your choice.
• Hot glue gun (use low temp as the bouquet holder has styrofoam you glue the flowers in to).
• Ribbon - I recommend not using wired ribbon for this as it's tough to keep the edges from fraying and when they do the tip of the wire will end up poking you as I found out the hard way).

Now for the fun part.  I worked from the middle out though most DIY videos I looked at on YouTube recommended starting from the outer edges and working in.  The trick to starting in the middle is to know what length to cut the flowers, but since I was using hydrangea as the base I didn't have to worry about that.

Poke your stems into the sytrofoam.  Don't worry if you don't get them perfect the first time as you can pull them out and reposition.  Then, when you have them where you want them, put the hot glue into the hole and then re-insert the flower.  This way you know the flowers will stay where you put them and not fall out while you are walking down the aisle!

Ok, it's starting to look pretty good now.  Our next step is to put ribbon, bling, brooches, whatever else you want in the bouquet.  Again, poke it in and when you are sure you like it there, pull it out, squirt some hot glue in there and then place it back in the hole.  Be sure to give it a few minutes to dry.

Now what about the naked handle?  Here's where your ribbon comes in.  I start by placing about 3 inches of ribbon extending up the back of the handle.  Then, twist at the top of the handle and start wrapping it, being sure to keep it taut as you are wrapping.  When you reach the bottom start wrapping it back up to the top.  Here's where that extra 3" of ribbon at the top comes in handy as you can then cut the ribbon and tie it to that piece at the top.  Easy breezy!  Then cut the edges, fold them over and place a tiny dab of glue to hold them down.  I used glue instead of pearl pins because there is nothing but the ribbon for the pearl pins to grab on to and they end up poking out.

Attaching it to the memory book is simple.  Just tie ribbon around the memory book and knot securely in the front.  I wrapped mine a couple of times around so I could wrap my fingers through the ribbon in the back to carry it.  Then take another piece of ribbon, lay your bouquet on the top of the book and tie it to the book.  Again I used several pieces of ribbon so the bouquet was secure and did not wobble.

And there you have it! One beautiful hand-made bouquet that looks exactly the way you wanted!