How to make a Fresh Floral Bouquet
Make it simple and it will look wonderful.

A unique bouquet will enhance a plain dress
A simple bouquet will enhance an elaborate dress

You will need floral or stem wrap tape some floral wire (to support the weaker stems), a bouquet collar (if you are using one).

Your flowers / bouquet should work with your dress design, your body shape and how tall you are. Petite brides have petite bouquets. When you think about what flowers you want in your bouquets please keep in mind "the season" and "where you are having the wedding".

The bouquet is just a larger version of the corsage. Bouquets look better when the flower stems are showing. If you are planning to toss the bouquet you make a second one for that purpose.

For fresh flowers the first thing to do is to soak the flowers in a preservative solution for several hours so the bouquet will last a long time.

1. Loosely wrap the wire around the full length of the stems in a spiral.
2. Cut the stems across the bottom before wrapping in floral tape.

Taping wired stems
1. Wrap a piece of floral tape around the top of the wire and press in place.
2. Turn the stems and stretching and pulling the tape in a downward angle.
   The tape should be tightly wrapped around the wire stems without any
   buckles or gaps.

Wrapping Stems with Ribbon

1. Hot glue the end of the ribbon 1" from the bottom of the stems.

2. Pull the ribbon around the bottom of the stems and wrap carefully up the
    length of the stems. Hot glue at the top to secure and trim off any extra
    ribbon.

3. To add tails to wrapped stems hot glue ends of ribbon to ends of stems
    before wrapping the stems with ribbons.


Fresh Flower Corsage Technique

Corsages are actually three boutonnieres you put together.
Use odd numbers for your flowers...you want one, three, or five flowers in your corsage.
Gather your flowers together and tape stem wrap around the stems. Floral tape comes in green and white.
Now add your baby's breath, gypsophilia, tiny forget me not’s or whatever filler you have chosen. This should be placed sparingly between the flowers.
Now place your corsage leaves over the stems below the flowers.
You can now wrap it all together with floral tape.
Trim your stems if you need to.
Add your ribbon bow.
Wrap the stems in ribbon if you want.
Put a corsage pin into the stems to use later.
You may need to use some wiring techniques to support your flowers heads
 

The Basic Corsage

Silk Flower Corsage Technique:
Use wire clippers to shorten stems.
The wire stem of the flower and green can usually be utilised instead of rewiring and taping. If you need only one, two or three inches of stem, tape over it first and cut it to the desired length.

If you need the stem to be longer, lighter or more pliable, cut the stem below the flower to three or four inches and tape a floral wire over it
Filler flowers and greens can be added to each flower with hot glue.

Single cluster: Add the filler and greens to the flower by wrapping the wire stems of each around the flower. Always add the filler first to surround the flower and the greens last to frame it in. Cut excess wire off after wrapping around twice. This keeps the cluster from getting too heavy.

Adding clusters together: Make three to five single clusters. Wrap the stem of one around the next to form the corsage. A bow can be added at any point by wrapping its wire onto a cluster.



Basic Bow
1. Using about 110" ribbon measure about 7" for the first tail. Squeeze the
   ribbon together and hold it with your thumb and forefinger.

2. With the right side of the ribbon facing out make a loop on one side using
   6-7" of ribbon. Pinch the ribbon together and hold it with your thumb and
   forefinger. as before.

3. Make a full twist of the ribbon so the right side is facing out and make a
    loop towards the other side.

4. The second and third sets of loops should be progressively smaller than
    the first set. Make a fourth set of loops still smaller than the first three.
   Be sure to fully twist each loop so that the right side of the ribbon is
   always facing out.

5. Twist the remaining ribbon around your thumb to make the centre loop.
    Adjust the tail so the right side of the ribbon is facing out. Insert a piece
    of wire through the centre and twist it tightly at the back of the bow.

6. Spread out the loops and cut the ends of the tails at sharp angles or
    inverted V's