In the summer I made flowers for Mary, a lovely Irish bride to be, who wanted a blush wedding bouquet with buttonholes and corsages. Blush is a popular colour for brides but you need to know what flowers are “blush colour” if you are making your own bouquet. No worries, however, as I’m going to tell you and give you the recipe for the bouquet at the end of this blog.

The brief from Mary was that the bouquet should be wild and blush pinks and lilacs but she didn’t mind other colours such as white and maybe dark purple foliage. She sent me a photo on Pinterest but I felt that the bouquet could be fuller and have more interest and texture to it.

All photos in the blog are by kind permission of www.summerlilystudio.com

A Wild Blush Bouquet

Blush roses can be bought from your local wholesaler. If you want to be eco friendly it’s very difficult to find the exact blush colour roses grown in the Uk so I would advise you looked up a British rose flower growing and find out their options of colours before committing to a colour palette. I bought these from a wholesaler and then added my garden grown flowers to the bouquet to make it look as natural as possible.

I bought and picked everything on the Thursday before the wedding and cut and conditioned all the flowers and foliage that day and stored them in a cool place. Flowers and cut foliage need to have a good drink before they are arranged and then kept in water until the last possible minute. This summer in the Uk was exceptionally hot (35 degree celsius for this bride) and things can wilt pretty fast .

I made up all the brides bouquet, bridesmaids bouquets and buttonholes and corsages on Friday so that everything was in perfect condition for the Big Day. The only thing left to do on the morning of the wedding was to add the ribbons to the bouquets.

If you would like to make your own wedding bouquets and buttonholes or all of your wedding flowers, then have a look at some of my upcoming courses DIY Wedding Flower workshop one day and Make your own bouquet and buttonholes workshop (half day).

Photography by kind permission of www.summerlilystudio.com

Blush Buttonholes

I made the buttonholes with Amnesia roses, hebe flowers and Daucus Carota picked from my cutting garden. I then used twine to finish off the buttonhole for a wild rustic look. Hebe flowers and Daucus Carota can be grown very easily in time for a wedding , if you fancy a go at growing your own flowers even in a few pots or a small area then see my “Grow your own wedding flowers “ workshop for details .