DIY Bombonieres and Favours

Ever considered making your own bombonieres?  That’s what I did.  If you are a sweet sugar lover as myself, you  may want to consider making your own  bomboniere Sugar Cookies!  I think it’s a nice personal touch and allows you to give a more personalized gift to your wedding guests. 

Let’s be real, I am no expert when it comes to making these cute cutout cookies, but after practice and with the help of my mother, MOH (Maid of Honour), and bridesmaids, I was able to do 225 of these cookies. 

1. Recipe: Find a recipe that’s tried, tested and true.  I used the Joy of Baking cookie batter and royal icing recipe.  But recently I found another recipe that I like better from Sweetopia and now I use that one.

2. Packaging:  The packaging is very important because it will enhance your cookie and make it look more professional and elegant.  I used a clear cellophane bag with a coloured ribbon tied around it.  The ribbon matched the theme colours of my wedding (green with accents of fuchsia pink).  I found the bags at Wal-Mart, made by Wilson and are fairly inexpensive.  The clear bags are a really nice touch because they add colour to your table setting. The only other touch of colour I had on the table were my green topiary centerpieces (this is to come in another post!)  Another option which also works is packaging the cookis in clear boxes.  However I didn’t do this because I couldn’t find the exact box I was looking for, and they are typically more expensive.  Remember, I am a frugal fashionista 😉

3. Assign tasks.  Being the bride you need to organize who will do what and when.  One tip of advice: the cookies do not need to be completed in one day- it is a process.  If you plan it properly, you can actually do one task a day.  I made the batter 6 days before the wedding and baked them that night with the help of my fiance and sister).  The cookies were flooded with the pink 5 days in advance (with the help of my mom and sisters).  The fine details were done 4 days in advance (thanks to the help of my MOH who handwrit “CB” on every cookie).   I was fortunate to have someone to do the fine detailing who had a steady and consistent hand.  She did almost every cookie identically.  Finally, all of us girls bagged and tied ribbons 3 days before the wedding.

DIY Wedding Flowers

Why not make your own flower bouquets?

My Flower Girls

 

I was inspired to create my own wedding bouquets because I think it’s a nice personal touch and I also wanted to challenged myself to stick within my budget!  Flowers can take up quite a bit of your budget especially if you are using real flowers for your centerpieces as well.

I ordered 6 dozen roses from a local flower shop, along with 20 stems of green Hypericum Berries which allowed me to make 4 Bridesmaid and MOH bouquets, 1 large Bride bouquet, 1 small bouquet for my Flower Girl and another small bouquet for me to toss at the reception (trust me, you don’t want to toss your large beautiful bouquet – you will regret it!)

We  picked up the flowers the morning before the wedding, and with the help of my mom and a close friend, we completed them that afternoon.  Make sure you store them in a cool dark place.  We kept ours in the basement in a couple large buckets of water.

What you will need to make your bouquets:

• Scissors to trim the flower stems to the appropriate length
• Floral Tape to hold the flower stems together
• Ribbon or Fabric to wrap around the bouquet stem
• Glue gun or pins to hold the fabric together

The hardest part is arranging the flowers so that they create a domed circular shape.  My advice is to start with one stem – pick one with the largest head. From there, add 3 roses around the large rose to create a triangle shape.  Then add more flowers inbetween the triangle to create a circular shape.  Keep adding as many roses that are needed, one at a time, until the perfect bouquet is formed.  Trust me, it takes a bit of fiddling around especially if you are new at this!  But it’s definitely doable!  You can do it!!

Wedding bands on my bouquet

Along with creating my wedding bouquets, we also made beautiful flower arrangements for the church!  The Hydrangeas are from my cousin’s garden.  Yes that’s right, my cousin grew these in her garden and we picked a few of them the day before the wedding!  They are a hardy flower and will last for quite a while as long as you keep them well hydrated.  I read somewhere to spritz the pedals with water every so often  so I made sure we did that as we arranged them, but I think they would have been fine even if we didn’t do that.  The green flowers are from the same floral shop.  I loved the spikey look of these flowers and wanted to incorporate them some how!

Church flowers