Spring Flowers Bridal Bouquet

The Pantone 2018 Color of the Year, Ultra Violet was the inspiration for this delightful spring bridal bouquet. Leanne combines Sweet Peas, Lisianthus, Ranunculus and Scabiosa buds in a Dusty Miller wrapped bridal bouquet holder as she demonstrates the techniques used in creating this bouquet. Enjoy!

Video Transcription 


Welcome to the FlowerSchool.com video library. I'm Leanne Kesler, Director of the Floral Design Institute. Today, I'm here to share with you a fabulous spring flower bridal bouquet. It's one of my favorites. I hope you like it as well as I do. 


Spring flowers can be a little fragile, so using a holder gives you a water reservoir to keep them alive for a long time. Now, the white plastic is a little garish against the flowers, so I want to cover that. Easiest is to cover it with foliage using Dusty Miller attached with 3M Super 77 Spray Glue and wrapped overlapped over and over, so it gives it a nice wonderful padded handle for the bride to hang onto. 


Once you have the back done, you can set it into a holder and then you want to conceal the top. I like to use Plumosa, one long piece, giving it a cut and then just place that into the foam and wrap it so that you get one insertion to totally cover the cage. You can knot it back on itself. Some of the flowers will hold it in place. Or take a greening pin and go back and secure that, just kind of locking it. You can see how quickly you get good coverage so that you're ready to add the rest of your foliage, but the base mechanics are now concealed. 


Then for the foliage, I grabbed two varieties of eucalyptus. Some Gunni and some naked seeded eucalyptus. Let's work on a horizontal. Bringing it out to the side and the opposite side. Getting that long low bouquet that's so popular right now. Coming forward, but not quite so far. Maybe another one that comes down even further. Getting that beautiful crescent begun. Smaller pieces towards the top. Remembering to bring some around to the backside as well so that everything matches front to back. Then some seeded eucalyptus. Also letting that drape beautifully. Back to the front for you. Then the opposite side. Then even a little smaller bits up towards the center. 


With Pantone announcing their Color of the Year as Ultra Violet, I think you're going to see far more purples than you have in the past. Sweetpeas in this variegated phase, really pick up the color palette of the Pantone Color of the Year. How perfect is that? Then they're long, so they can extend out to the sides carrying on that horizontal line. Then the opposite side. Letting them trail a bit. Finding the perfect hole. Getting it deeply in, so that they don't come out. Then carrying the eye inward. Even a bit to the center. You can see that color just fills in beautifully. I'm using this throughout to be my unifier in the bouquet. 


The Sweetpeas give me the base. Now adding in Lisianthus, Ranunculus, and Scabiosa buds to finish filling it in, make it be lovely. Now, bringing in larger blooms towards the center, because you still need an accent area. Tucking it in there. Maybe bringing two of them, one shadowed below the other to draw more attention to that spot. Then bringing out the buds. I can divide them using Lisianthus buds first. Drapping and then coming back with the bloom sequencing inward. The color starts to create interest and contrast. The Scabiosa buds are so delicate, letting them even come out over the top a little bit creating interest. Then filling in throughout with Ranunculus, Lisianthus and buds till it's nice and full. 


If you've worked with Dusty Miller, you know that it's kind of temperamental. It can fade and wilt so quickly. By spray gluing it on the holder, that solves that. It's going to stay just beautiful, but sometimes you want it in the bouquet as well and it doesn't go fabulous in floral foam. Instead, what I do is I break it down into small bits, just little pieces, and then using the Oasis Floral Adhesive, just a bit of glue at the base, and then tuck it very low so that as it does wilt and fade, it's so tucked in, it just adds the color and texture but you won't notice that it is wilted and faded. 


Inspired by the Pantone Color of the Year Ultra Violet. Interpreted with spring flowers in a bridal bouquet. Oh so fun and fabulous. For more creative inspiration check out the website FlowerSchool.com. The website contains hundreds of floral design how-to videos, floral design classes, online floral classes and DIY Flowers. If you've got questions, you can reach us through there or by telephone at 503-223-8089. If it's easier, use my personal email, Leanne@FloralDesignInstitute.com. Now, I would love to see what you create. Take a picture, post it on social media and tag FloralDesignInstitute so we all can see, because now it's your turn. Have fun and do something you love.

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