One of the more expensive parts of a wedding is buying flowers. Flowers, especially arranged flowers are thousands of dollars depending on how many flowers you want to have. To cut down on cost many brides have been choosing to buy their flowers in bulk and arrange the flowers themselves.

One of the common flower pieces in a wedding are boutonnieres for the groomsmen in the party. Some brides are worried about making their own boutonnieres because they are afraid they will come out wrong, but here is an easy way to make some great looking boutonnieres.

Step 1: Supplies

Here are the things you will need to create your boutonnieres.

Flowers - both the main flower and some filler flowers

Floral Tape

Scissors

A bucket of water

Ribbon

(Hot Glue Gun)

Step 2: Start by Picking the Flowers

The best way to start any boutonniere is to lay out the flowers you want in each one.

Here you can make sure you unbundle your bunches and choose the best flowers for each boutonniere. This saves time in the long run so you are not looking for the best and most symmetrical flowers later on.

Lay the chosen flowers on the table by boutonniere.

Step 3: Arrange the Flowers

Once the flowers wanted in the boutonniere laid out we started to arrange them.

You might be hesitant about arranging these flowers if you have little to no experience, but here is a great trick. Start with a middle flower. This will be there center of the boutonniere and the show piece. On either side of the boutonniere symmetrically place some filler flowers.

Do not go overboard with the flowers. Sometimes simplicity is key.

When you are happy with how the flowers look use some of the floral tape and tape around the stems tight enough so the flowers won't move around.

Step 4: Cut the Stems

What will be left is a small grouping of flowers will a lot of stem. The next step is to cut the stem so it only has a small stem that can be pinned to a jacket.

Start by deciding where to cut the stem.

Place the stem in the bucket of water and cut while the stems are underwater. This will with flower's water absorption. (while the boutonnieres don't really get placed in water afterward, cutting the stems underwater will help prolong their life for a little bit)

Step 5: Ribbon

When the stem is cut to the desired length the last step is to decorate the stems. The most common way to do this is by using ribbon.

Wrap the ribbon carefully around the stems. Have the ribbon pulled tight as it is being wrapped to avoid any wrinkles or weird bumps in the ribbon.

When done either tuck the ribbon in the back of the boutonniere. Another option is to hot glue the ribbon on the back side of the boutonniere. This makes it look a little less clean all around, but no one is going to look closely at the back of the boutonniere so we weren't really worried about it.

Step 6: Store in Fridge

When you are done, have a space available in the fridge to store the boutonnieres until the big day. This will keep the flowers as fresh as possible until the big day arrives. (I suggest don't do the boutonnieres too far ahead of time).

You can also add the pin to the boutonniere at this time so that you don't have to go looking for pins the day of.

Finally when the big day arrives they will be ready to go and look great!

Enjoy!