Paper Flower Wedding

Posted on 8th May 2017 by STACEY BONE
Filed under Card Making Ideas

Hi everyone, it's Stacey and today I'm sharing my beautiful wedding paper adventure. Hope you all like!

Being a paper florist, the decision was made quite early on that I was going to be crafting all of our wedding flowers/decorations. I couldn’t have it any other way. It was a personal touch I wanted to bring to our wedding and a lovely sense of achievement for myself. My new husband (still haven’t got used to saying husband) was very supportive from the beginning and even helped out; great teamwork!

So began the floral dream, I knew I wanted colour and lots of it. The beauty of making my flowers from paper meant I could create any flower in any colour I fancied. I spent many hours designing petal shapes, cutting, glueing and curling flower after flower – thankfully I found it very therapeutic. Countless glue sticks and sheets of card later, our conservatory was beginning to look like a flower shop.

During the beginning of my flower journey, I learnt a very valuable lesson. It’s true what they say that less is definitely more. Like most brides I had big visions and mine was to have flowers displayed everywhere I could squeeze a vase, but after lots and I mean lots of trips to our chosen venue, I realised the place itself oozed so much character that my flowers didn’t need to be overpowering and they could quite simply be a small added feature. So I went back to the drawing board and scrapped quite a lot of what I wanted. I had been trial and error for a while making several different styles of flowers for hairpieces and centrepieces but that’s exactly what it was, experimenting to find out exactly what I wanted. I didn’t feel I’d wasted any time nor did I feel upset to be losing what I had envisioned, I was quite the opposite.

Our chosen colours were navy for the bridesmaids and grooms party with pale blue and ivory for the buttonholes, corsages and hairpieces. For the bridesmaids' bouquets and mine, I wanted popping colours and rich dark leaves.  Papermilldirect’s diverse colour range meant I could get the exact shades I wanted and in the desired GSM too. I cut all my petals using my Circuit Machine, which saved me lots of time and pressure on my hands.

I purchased 2 x A4 mega boxes of paper/card from Papermilldirect for £55.00 that gets you roughly 645 sheets per box. It’s a great buy and value for money if you do a lot of crafting and the paper quality is fantastic! You get 10 picks from a range of paper/card and can duplicate colours if you want more of a particular one. Another great feature they offer is sample packs. If you’re not quite sure of a colour or weight, you can order a sample box before you commit to a large quantity. For £1 you get 10 picks of any of their colours, DL sheet size.

I crafted paper thank you baskets for the bridesmaids and Maid of Honour (MOH) and buttonholes for the groom’s party with matching corsages for their partners. The bridesmaids/MOH all had paper hair fascinators that matched the buttonholes and I had mini paper flower clips for my hair. I added a couple of the mini hair clip flowers to my husbands and best man's buttonhole so we matched. For added glitz, I purchased some mini stick on gems to add to the centre of my hair clips. This was a very last minute decision, the day before the wedding to be precise, which my sister kindly did with her steady hands.

The bridesmaids/MOH bouquets were posies made from five large paper flowers. The holders were Oasis floral products – Wedding Belle, dry foam. My bouquet was a combination of the same flowers and those of the buttonhole style. I used Oasis Countless foam filled bouquet holder for mine. I truly and utter adore my bouquet and could not be more pleased with how it turned out and that goes for all the wedding flowers. The compliments I received from our guests were lovely and it made the whole crafting experience worthwhile. 

I purchased ribbon to the closest colour I could find to match the paper/card, which I tied around each bouquet at different lengths (and when I say I, I mean my MOH who gave me a helping hand). The colours stood out beautifully against the girls’ dresses and mine.

Using the same ribbon I tied bows (and when I say I here, I mean my MOH’s husband – great helper!) to each table vase so everything matched.

For the top table and a decorative display in another room at Crook Hall I crafted a few long table centrepieces, which incorporated the same flowers as the bouquets and buttonholes. Using the same green foliage from my bouquet, both ends of the centrepieces flowed with the dark green leaves.

During the wedding ceremony we opted to add the rose ceremony, this was the exchange of a single rose between my husband and I. A single rose represents ‘I love you’ and what a better way to say it than with two handcrafted paper roses.

Another idea for the wedding, which I wanted from the beginning, was a large paper flower backdrop to hang as the main focal piece. Using the same colours papers I crafted large hanging flowers that attached to slim wooden poles and clear fishing wire. I’m so pleased I crafted this because the photographs of our ceremony with the backdrop in look amazing. I think the colour combination worked extremely well.

It wasn’t just the flowers I crafted for our wedding; to keep with the paper theme, I cut table names in ornate frames on my Cricut Machine, and each was named after the different gardens of Crook Hall.

One of the great pleasures of crating our wedding flowers is that we got to bring them home with us and they’re now displayed around our home and families homes as a lovely reminder of our gorgeous day. Unlike real flowers, they don’t die or wilt or need any after care. As long as they’re kept away for direct sunlight so they don’t fade, they’ll stay pretty for a very long time. 

Credit to Roger our wedding photographer for our amazing photographs - Avant Garde Photography

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