Trying my hand at flower arrangements

One of the vendors we have to book for the wedding is a florist. I've met with several and will make a decision soon. One florist, after talking with me about what we need for the wedding, the colors and flowers I liked, my budget, etc. gifted me with a bunch of flowers to take home.

I ended up traveling on the subway and walking home with this giant paper package in my arms.

He gave me a huge variety - gerber daisies, orchids, hyacinths, roses, carnations, lilies - and I went to work putting together an arrangement.


FI had bought a vase from IKEA so I could put any flowers I get from him in it. I grabbed the vase and set up shop in our front hallway (easy access to kitchen and bathroom for water and paper towels). First I tied the raffia ribbon from the bouquet around the vase.


Then I spread out all of the flowers and started trimming the stems and placing them on the vase. I don't have any gardening shears, so I used a pair of desk scissors. It worked okay, although my cuts weren't very clean.


Then I started arranging them in the vase. I would put in all the stems of one type of flower, then slowly add others mixed throughout the flowers so there would be nice color contrasts and textural differences.


Here was my first completed arrangement.


But wait! We didn't want to see the ugly stems in the glass vase! So taking a page from lots of wedding photos I've seen, I took all the flowers out and lined the vase with the broad leaves (banana?) that were also given to me.

It's not completely smooth, but still a pretty nice effect. Especially since I had already put water (with plant food) in the vase and had to do it underwater.


Then I rearranged all of the flowers back into the vase. It looked pretty cool on our side table for the next few days.


Another overhead shot!


Given how much I like trashbowl shots, I can't finish this post without one of the mess I ended up with in the hallway.
Don't worry, I cleaned it all up!