Saturday, April 11, 2009

DIY Wheat Bouquet

Since very early in the wedding planning process, I've planned to make myself a wheat bouquet. I believe I was originally inspired by this photo:



Today, one of my bridesmaids and I went to Garden Ridge (and Hobby Lobby due to Garden Ridge's veeery poor ribbon selection) to gather supplies for my bouquet! I had been putting it off until I cleaned out some room in my "wedding closet" (the guest bedroom closet in which I hide all of my wedding shtuff from our pets) for it. However, folks from my wedding party were in town to help me with wedding tasks this weekend and I have a bridal portrait shoot in less than 2 weeks. If I remain satisfied with today's product, I can use it in my wedding in October too!

I bought 3 bundles of blackbeard wheat at Garden Ridge for $2.99 each. I only wound up using 2 of the bundles, but I wasn't sure exactly how much I'd need and I can always use the rest for other projects later. Also, note the price tag. I can afford the extra bundle to play with, methinks.

Here are the two bundles prior to being combined. In some ways I prefer the type of wheat used in the inspiration photo, but they were out of it today at Garden Ridge and I actually think the contrast the blackbeard wheat will have against my dress will be nice.

We cut the rubber bands off the bundles and began sorting them, removing any that were broken, too short, an inconsistent color, or otherwise unusable. We also cut the tips shorter on some of the wheat to make them a little less full when put all together.

There were 3 or 4 of the out-of-stock wheat hiding in among my blackbeard wheat.

Once we had chosen all of the stems of a consistent length and quality, I held them tightly and bridesmaid Kelsey began wrapping floral tape around the stems to hold them together.

We started the tape slightly lower on the stems than I wanted the ribbon to start and really just kept wrapping until it felt sturdy.

I then tightly wrapped the chocolate brown ribbon I picked up at Hobby Lobby over the floral tape and held it in place with regularly spaced pearl-tipped corsage pins pushed in at an angle.

Ta dah! Apparently I need to figure out how to hold my bouquet less awkwardly, but I like it! Judging by this photo, I think I might cut a few inches off of the bottom but that should be easy enough.

I'd like to thank my helpers for today's project:

The lovely Bridesmaid Kelsey!


William Shatner!





4 comments:

Jess said...

Gorgeous!!!!

I think the contrast it going to be fantastic-- it will make for good pictures. I really like the pearls; the whole thing looks professionally done.

Also your bouquet will last FOREVER-- provided the animals don't get ahold of it, that is. You can hang it on the wall after the wedding!

Wugaboo!

Mary Cyrus said...

Thanks sister-person. :] I'm pretty pleased with my results. I'm also very pleased with the fact that I can make it now, 6 months before the wedding, use it for my wedding, and keep it for forever 'n' ever! Talk about a good deal too. No $80, $90, $100 florist-created bridal bouquet for me, thanks. If you include the extra wheat I bought, the supplies came to somewhere in the neighborhood of $15. Ooo, maybe I'll make a smaller "toss bouquet" with the leftover wheat so I can keep my bouquet as a keepsake. :]

Anonymous said...

Did you happen to see this post on Wedding Bee:

http://www.weddingbee.com/2009/04/17/the-centerpieces-a-diy-project/#more-90614

I was thinking #1 might look really good with coffee beans in the vase (since you've already started a collection) and would tie in with your bouquet!

writtenbliss said...

hahaha ... shatner cracks me up. The wheat bouquets look great! I agree about cutting a couple inches of the bottom, though.