JENNY'S (very) AMATEUR GUIDE TO MAKING SILK BRIDESMAID BOUQUETS!
A clumsy title yes, which perfectly reflects my skill when making the damn things.
We are now less than five weeks away from my little sister's wedding, and a couple of weeks ago I brought up the subject of bridesmaid bouquets. Where was she going to get them from? Was she going to make them herself? Fresh or silk? I asked. Ooh, said the sister, I hadn't even thought about those! (A response I think I'm going to hear a lot over the next few weeks. Fabulously efficient she may be regarding the essentials, but as far as she is concerned the devil is most definitely in the details.)
We decided they had to be in silk really, as her stunning cream bouquet is silk, and it would be a TRAVESTY for the bridesmaids to have fresh flowers if the bride did not. Cream and burgundy, we also decided, to match the dresses. Then we had a look to see what was available on the internet.
"HOW MUCH???" we both screeched in unison. To be fair to the online silk bouquet purveyors, my sister's budget is tight, and neither of us really had a clue how much silk flowers cost. Twenty pence each? we wondered. I was soon to find out.
Over the years I have developed a reputation as the family "stuff maker". Cakes, quilts, fimo figurines - come to Jenny. This is mainly due to the fact that I have a great love for anything sticky, squishy or mucky, and in no way reflects my actual skill at any of the activities I try my hand at. My loyal family though, undaunted by a succession of gruesome paintings, badly-blown eggs, and terrifying demon sock monkeys, persist in labelling me "Creative". This is of course a self-fulfilling prophecy, as when you are the "creative" one you feel that any time a Blue Peter volunteer is needed you must step into the breach. Which is exactly what happened in this instance. "I'll make the bouquets!" I cried with a happy, confident smile. "Don't you worry about a thing!"
Leaving the sister reassured and grateful, I collapsed into a puddle of self-loathing and recrimination on the train. Why oh why had I offered to do this? What on earth made me think I could make bouquets when I can't even arrange daffodils in a vase? (Why do the bendy little blighters never stand up straight?). My sister would hate me. The guests would laugh and point. I was going to have to plead sickness, to go into hiding, to leave the country. However, once home and fortified with a couple of strong gins (medicinal), I felt slightly more confident. How hard could it be? I studied some handy online guides - a couple quite dubious. "And viola! You now have pretty bunch!" After a while I felt strong enough to buy the flowers.
Not as easy as you'd think, buying silk flowers online. For a start, the names people give to colours vary wildly. "Wine" roses turned out to be fire-engine red. "Burgundy" hydrangeas were a weird chocolate brown. Some arrived without their stems - who buys flower heads? I'd love to know - and some were teeny tiny (my fault, didn't check, a bit tipsy by that point to be honest). Despite these setbacks I persisted, and within ten days I had a respectable bunch of flowers and greenery with which to compose my bouquets. With a happy heart and a pair of industrial wire cutters I laid out my stall on the floor of the flat, and set to.
Forgive me for not going into the next couple of hours in any detail, but the memories are still too painful. Suffice it to say that the air turned blue, the flat ran with blood, and my boyfriend barricaded himself in the bedroom. However! I am proud, not to say amazed, to be able to tell you that the finished products are not too bad. Not too bad at all. A little lopsided, maybe, and there is almost certainly a fair bit of blood on one or two of them (burgundy is a fabulous, handy colour scheme, don't you think?), but overall I am quite pleased, and fervently hope that my sister, not to mention the harpies - sorry, bridesmaids - will be also.
So, without further ado, here is my personal bouquet recipe!
1) Buy flowers. Offer all the ones that turn up the wrong colour/size to family and friends. Pretend you bought them especially for them.
2) Buy accoutrements; sparkly wiggly things; diamante pins, florist tape, ribbon etc.
3) Look up price of wire cutters. Gulp. Borrow them from friend, offer to make biscuits.
4) Pour large gin and tonic. You'll need it.
5) Artistically arrange everything in a heap on the floor. Throw yourself down in middle of heap.
6) Trim flower stems to roughly the same length using wire cutters. Pinch fingers. Swear.
7) Spend five minutes shaking hand, screaming ow ow ow and examining purple pinched patch.
8) Finish trimming the stems, very carefully.
9) Artistically group your first bunch of flowers together. Tweak, tweak some more, admire. Think about doing this professionally; you clearly have a gift.
10) With your one free hand, grope for florist tape. Find florist tape, fail to find end of florist tape.
11) Keep trying to find end of florist tape, one handed, for a couple of minutes. Find it, triumph.
12) Take scissors, try to cut florist tape while simultaneously holding florist tape and bunch of flowers. Drop flowers all over the floor.
12) Cut various lengths of the damn florist tape, stick them everywhere. Regroup flowers, pretend to like the bunch although you know it was much better before. Bind with horrid florist tape.
13) Realise you have left the wiggly sparkly thing out of the bouquet. Debate forgetting them altogether, then remember they were quite expensive. Try to stick in middle of bouquet; fail. Drink gin and swear.
14) Carefully undo devil florist tape, add wiggly sparkly thing to bunch. Redo the bunch with florist tape. Pretend it still looks as good as before.
14) Cut length of ribbon. Wrap ribbon down from the top to the bottom of the stems, then back up again. Run out of ribbon half way up. Breathe.
15) Cut length of ribbon the width of the room. With great difficulty manhandle it down and up the stems. Trim off spare metre of ribbon.
16) Whilst holding the ribbon carefully in place with your thumb, reach for diamante pins. Grope wildly around. Where are pins?
17) Throw everything around the room looking for pins. Shout a bit, do an angry dance. Scare boyfriend, who flees.
18) Find pins where boyfriend was sitting. Instantly blame him for everything.
19) Carefully and firmly push pins down through ribbon, between stems, into fingers.
20) **@@%*&@%%%%***!!!!!
21) Have a little cry.
22) Once bandaged, clean blood off floor and bouquet as well as you can. Tell yourself it doesn't show too much, and probably brings good luck in some cultures.
23) Have more gin.
24) Very, very gently push a second pin into bouquet. Escape unscathed. Rejoice!
25) Admire bouquet muchly. Take pictures. Go into the bedroom to show the boyfriend, who flinches as though you are going to hit him with it. Decide he is weird.
26) Have a little rest, and some more gin. And some chocolate. You deserve it, and it's five weeks until you have to fit into that dress, you'll be fine!
27) Repeat x number of bridesmaids. If you finish before 2am, you have done well!
So there you have it. A practical and realistic guide to making your silk bouquets. Enjoy!
