Arranging your own wedding centerpieces can be a great way to cut costs for your wedding and can ensure that you have exactly what you want for your big day! First you want to pick the color scheme you want to work with. Then see what is available within that palette in the season of your wedding. I highly suggest adding light and dark for contrast and also adding some colors that will compliment your main color scheme. Picking a variety of flowers that you want to work with is the first step. It is a great idea to take a trip to your local flower market and see what is available in your wedding color scheme. You may find things that you never expected! When we made these arrangements we were lucky to find this deep red coxcomb that we have never seen before! It was the perfect accent to the pink peonies. Also, be sure to ask at the flower market how to treat the flowers your are planning to use. Good questions to ask are about the temperatures they should be stored at, how they should be cut, how the leaves should be removed etc. Peonies especially have specific techniques to peeling the leaves and petals off when you want them to open up and need to be kept cool to prevent them from opening prematurely. For vases we used simple canning jars and these amazing wrought iron mason jar lids that we got online. They make arranging so much easier because they hold the flowers in place! Have fun!
What We Used : Mason Jars/ Iron Lids / Cold Water / Clippers / Green Hydrangeas /Pink Peonies / Wax Flower / Red Coxcomb / Eucalyptus / Broom / Fern
Fill Your jars with cool water to within an inch of the top and screw on your iron lids tightly.
Begin with one of your prominent flowers. We started with a sprig of our green hydrangea. If there are any browning petals, remove them carefully as you go with clippers.
Next, add another prominent flower to the vase. If you are working with peonies this is the time to peel the green leaves from the base of the bud that are keeping it closed. You will see it begin to open before your eyes.
Next add smaller sprigs of your filler materials in varying heights. Some of your filler should be shorter than your main flowers, creating a nest between the flowers and the jar lid. Other fillers can be used to create height, like we did with the coxcomb. You can also use the filler to fill small gaps in and between the flowers. Here we stuck a little wax flower inside the hydrangea to give it some contrast and fullness.
Eucalyptus is a great filler for adding to the size of your arrangement without making it bulky. You can use delicate branches to extend out from your arrangement to create balance through asymmetry.
Lastly, use your most delicate filler to add height to your arrangement. We love this plum fern because it is wispy but also adds a dark hue to contrast with the light flowers and the bright coxcomb. It also brings out the deep pink at the edges of the peony petals. Change up your approach with each centerpiece. To do this you can leave out one of your prominent flowers or use different combinations of the fillers to highlight different colors and textures. This will give them a variety that will add to the decor as a whole.
You can also treat the flowers differently. Here we left the base leaves on the peonies to keep them as buds instead of encouraging them to open for a totally different aesthetic.
When you see them all together, you will be blown away at how amazing they look!
Here are all of our jars together to give you an idea of our variety that we ended up with! You could create larger centerpieces like this if you arrange the jars close together! Or you can space them out for a more delicate effect.
We also used different heights of jars to add to the mix. This is another great way to create variety amidst your centerpieces! Once you are finished, go over each and make sure the sprigs are all secure in the lids. If you have some extra filler, go around and see if there are any bare spots or places where the arrangements don’t feel balanced. Also make sure that all of the stems are submerged in water so that you don’t have any flowers prematurely wilt during your big day!
Photography : MCR PROJECTS
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