MAKING A BRIDAL BOUQUET | HOW TO CREATE A WEDDING BOUQUET WITH FLORAL

Hi guys. Your Toronto wedding photographer here. Today I am here with Melissa who is a San Diego florist so Melissa tell us a little bit about your company and what we're gonna be doing today great well thank you guys so much for watching what I'm presenting to you today my name is Melissa of flora i offer all kinds of wedding services but mainly you know to my brides here in San Diego I do travel up to the Bay Area which is great you so rigidly from and then anywhere your heart desires is really kind of a new adventure for me cool today we're gonna be making a bouquet tell us a little bit about your style of bouquet because it might be different than what other wines have seen so what is your vibe sure so initially when approaching bouquets I like mother nature and the form of the florals themselves to lead the way but I do call it like an organic type of shape okay um organic sort of heart shape almost is what I refer to it as and that kind of helps give a visual to my bride really very and then that way when they're having an idea of where they're holding it to they can kind of have a visual that looks like and then in terms of the style it's very more Airy I like you know each each balloon to have their room to shine the color palette this one in particular is pretty monochromatic with an extra little pop of something special okay to give some depth and I like to add textural varieties that are pulled directly from those guys these are two bruises okay these are local so what I've selected these in particular just because I saw this really beautiful sort of Daisy - yeah well link here so that's just helping me make decisions okay in choosing across so with the bridal bouquet what is the first thing you're going to do to get the process started yes well basically what I'll do is I'll just take bits and pieces of everything I've put here okay I'll process them just a little bit more to see and then I'm just gonna start with the base structure and work out okay um and then just kind of go from there and see kind of what the material is gonna let happen i I really don't come into the design with an idea of really what it needs to look like I just know I need it to be gorgeous and including these things there's not like error that's gonna come in you just kind of are playing and then adjusting as you go so maybe that will make people feel like they can just go ahead and start and yet they're not liking it they gotta start asserting I also am Not Afraid to edit myself afterwards you know there are a lot of times you guys don't see off-camera I'm using a mirror to work in which is a really important tool that I use to even be able to tell what things look like in front of me because looking at them here has no for you as a photographer the client all that so I used that and then if something's looking flat or really dark or really light or too far out here I'm able to see that and will edit right so you're just kind of grabbing a couple different pieces of things and then as we go I guess for some of the brides who don't know what things are called sure I would love even if it seems like really obvious like a rose yeah so this Rose in particular you know it was pretty it's hard to find sometimes but you know I so told myself if it's at the market uh-huh her name is toffee coffee rose so a lot of times roses will take on like dessert flavors or okay named after somebody but this one is just delicious as so many different layers this happened to be at the market so kind of where I started for the rose and then these are some butterfly run Occulus okay two guys local tube roses and some clover all of the dried goods are foraged locally and then sun-bleached I wasn't planning on including these these are quite old actually yeah so might not even use those it's fun they kind of remind me of giant honeysuckles exactly well and it started turning that little brownish haha made it make more sense for this so went there and then these guys are nagi greenery this actually is a bright super Kelly like forest green almost okay and I've Sun bleached it for like a month and a half directly in the Sun and rotating them all to get this color oftentimes this toffee Rose I want but it's either not available or way too expensive for a normal bridal bouquet like what kind of quantity are you typically buying in typically yeah I'll basically get about 10 stems of each variety basically one a bunch of each variety that I'm dreaming about a lot of times I don't even really know like how like the dried will respond because sometimes they're really strong okay times they'll break apart like crazy so again I've taught myself to go with the flow I think it comes to working with this type of material and so now you basically just got this cluster you're holding and you're just adding to it arranging things going in a spiral okay type of direction um it gives support and it gives me the ability to go ahead and let these Flyers kind of help support versus just be like falling going down okay down yes there's typically like a you know a feature flower that I would maybe say these guys are our future okay a little bit larger a little bit more detailed I'm probably put a few more of them these are also a beautiful feature I like to think of the the accents is a really nice feature to the ones that can float out and then you know sometimes you know I'm not loving the texture down below I'm really looking at the top okay no so if I'm really just needing some highlight like say if I'm feeling again if this is dark and I need some bright haha I'll use her even if I'm not needing her like okay for you know a stronger purpose it's okay Jose courting mmm gotcha so you're kind of trimming a little bit once you feel like it's unmanageable yeah [Music] so you know I kind of start in that little shape and then kind of reach these guys out and then how soon before a wedding day are you wanting typically to get your flowers ordered and have them in your studio typically before the wedding day I'll place my order anywhere between two to four weeks prior okay depending on how special like for instance for these if I totally wanted these yeah I would definitely put those in and then when are you picking them up - oh yeah and then the week of you have a Saturday wedding pending on what the varieties look like and how much care they really need and changes prison-cell pick up roses on a Wednesday because they need more warmth in a little bit more attention and a little bit more processing whereas you know maybe these guys here a little bit more delicate I want them in the [Music] soback okay what what are you thinking right now and what like is your process turning into at this point yeah so now I'm really I'm seeing where you know I would need to fill in kind of liking where this shape is going I'm feeling like I need some more attention here I'm also looking at the depth to see if my brights are where I like them I want to sprinkle more throughout because I have to decide kind of that now and pop them back through so they have that support that they need and then a few more supports and then we should be okay in bouquets I love dimension and I love texture and I love color but your bouquet is gonna have some sound to it as well thank you for noticing that yeah well and that's interesting yeah I know and I think that that's fun too I like to have a sensory experience brides and I like to include you know if they you know really enjoy like a rosemary or a lavender or something like that you know make sure that it's close to their boutonniere what's on their personal so they can have that sensory experience yeah I feel like we're definitely getting there I might need a friend over here maybe just a little shrine just to give me some reach drama so I'm definitely looking at directional movement and how our eye is traveling through this this little piece so right now you know we're really where are we starting we're kind of starting like here and then jumping to our bright say okay like so I do feel like I'm here you know I'm trying to make sure I'm going all the way back around and connecting back to my focal point okay I mean if I feel like over here being that I have a little bit of dried so if I get to a spot and I'm feeling like I get stuck that's where I kind of pop in a few little more additions like for instance I'm feeling like it's a little too stark white over here we have here and yeah so instead of ending on white you're gonna bring it back into the bring it back onto that okay tone but I also want to put in some more of our brights as you're going through and you're taping a little bit more yes that just kind of helps keep it together and maybe you don't have to strain your hand so much is that a benefit okay yes definitely so your thumb is there so yeah so that's where my main strength is a lot of times people get stuck on this part like how do I let go so just keep your strength right here and keep your hand on the other side and then just let your thumb go and then like you're almost threading it through bring your tape back through lift your thumb up and put it on in there not cha instead of feeling like you have to let go cuz you really don't and then just come up use the weight against it and just bring her out and then that way you can kind of tidy up a little bit later but it just gives you that just like grab so you're kind of also trimming your stems as you go off the bottom I talked about stems in my flower videos before and I personally think that there's a difference between long stems being intentional yes and long stems just not being looked at as part of the design and they didn't really be there I'm a nurse to me because I've had some bouquets where the stems were far too long and it wasn't supposed to be part of like some ethereal design where the stems were all I could focus on and so I've had to go in and cut some time so view and because otherwise they're poking the bride in the stomach there's far too long they're longer than the bouquet is it's just way too much so right now I'm looking at this guy and I'm seeing two like I'm like too much of an implied line right here like okay right of this yellow okay so my feelings aren't hurt if I come back and take her out things I'm done here so you're gonna tape now about how many times are you gonna go around this I will probably do let's count about five times and then I'll just kind of start moving the tape together so it didn't have any sort of messiness you know and then I what I tell my brides to when I hand it off and I hold it you know I'm them I go okay right demo I go this is it find your belly button do the thing and then I go this not the pretty no debes they're pretty firm you know and it's just that simple like as soon as you can I have them do that the motion I also love this method I will have my brothers yeah we I just like honey cradle in your arm don't worry about the hand being weird you won't see it and it's just a gorgeous shot and then your hair is all here and then your dress is here one thing I want to note is I typically won't do this if I have a really tight ball shaped because then it just looks strange you need to have some sort of like because it's like again I've like rectangular right yeah and so that flows off the arm nicely as if the bride just bundled up a bunch of flowers and is holding them carrying them somewhere so that's why I think that this is so versatile because you can hold it the more standard hold you can do this like you can just hold it different ways and I think it looks really lovely having that variety oh and then ribbon wise so there's just like more of a basic ribbon cover and then there's the trailing ribbon yes yeah so you can just have like one and I'll grab I'll grab the ones that I have okay something you know just holds very utilitarian you don't need every tape which is get cover your tape which is really nice or you can have like a nice trailing big one and I've done some they did fringe recently which was really fun because it's fun and she had fringe on her awesome things so it really kind of lent to them to go ahead and put the the ribbon on so I'll just lay it over like that [Music] so it about right here I'll pin it instead of tying it just to give it a little strength so I can tie it and this is actually the any part doesn't really matter where my pin will go like up and in you don't really want to go in directly just in case you happen to get a spot you'll go ahead and get your bridles hand that's not fun I'll go ahead and kind of camouflage that that friend so I'm going in here and then I'll just come back to the back here at the front wherever you kind of ended with your pin kind of like with the tape I tend to like the longer so I feel like this one looks kind of nice we have some you know kind of more wild features so adding the ribbon at different different lengths is really nice because that'll give you some tapered sort of shot maybe hopefully the wind will get it and some photos or some video then I'll come back again and kind of look at where the distances between the ribbon and the bottom mm-hmm and it really is enough stem for your hand to hold it so to finish it I use two pins and I probably wouldn't use such an obnoxious contrasting color but just for the sake of the video I don't just be able to show that there's two there okay is made ribbons are on gift and we've already gone over the different ways to hold it so you could cradle it again this I think works better with a more organic shape and then your standard shape and keeping your thumb on the pins which is really nice and then what I like to do when it comes to the bridal party I like to make sure that they're it's like all-around belly button but slightly different heights because just one straight across line looks a little bit weird so just a variety of heights any final tips that you have for making a bouquet or just something that you want to say about the art of creating one yeah I would say have patience with yourself when you're teaching yourself how to do it edit yourself to really take some photos I'm instituted to practice of you know having myself like take photos know what I look like holding it just really sets my mind at ease of what change might look like clay with depth and don't be afraid to let things hang out and let things feel like they're really far away because they're really not press yourself trust your initial instinct tell me in case anybody wants to hire you.