DIY Wedding: How to Make a Cascading Bridal Bouquet

Cascading bridal bouquets are a more formal and extravagant option for wedding flowers, and they are good ways to draw people's eyes down toward an intricate train on a wedding dress, or even to add elegance to a simple dress. Typically twice as expensive as regular bouquets purchased at a florist because of the work needed to put them together, you can arrange your own without too much extra expense because you only need to purchase a few additional flowers.

Flowers to Use in a Cascading Bridal Bouquet

Your cascading bridal bouquet can incorporate many of the same flowers as a traditional upright bouquet, but you will need to pay attention to selecting some flowers that will look good upside down. For example, calla lilies, which are a traditional wedding flower, lose much of their appeal if they are hanging upside down and their shape can't be seen. Orchids, however, come with a few flowers to a stem and can drape elegantly downward.

You will also need to purchase some greenery to hang down and form much of the cascade of your bouquet. Ivy is a classic choice, but there are many other options, from ferns to a variety of grasses, sometimes even with small blooms.

Other Materials Needed to Make a Cascading Bridal Bouquet

In addition to your flowers and greens, you will need a holder for your cascading bouquet. There are specialty holders available that are designed to hold a variety of stems coming in from many different angles. If you don't want to splurge on something special, you can just use a simple piece of flower foam. You will also need a pair of scissors, florist tape, and ribbons (should you desire to have any hanging ribbons in the cascade).

How to Assemble a Cascading Bridal Bouquet for Your Wedding

To assemble your bouquet, begin by putting the background greens into your holder. These pieces should flare outward like a lion's mane to establish the outside borders, from the top of the bouquet to the bottom of the cascade.

Next, put in the flowers that you desire to be your focal points so you can see where they will be placed. Space them out around the top and front of the bouquet, and include any blooms that are making up the cascade in this step.

After that, you just need to fill in with any additional pieces you would like to include, whether they are smaller flowers or more greenery. You may have to take some of the larger flowers out to get things in behind them, but just make sure you don't take them out too many times if it may damage the holder. Once that is done, affix any ribbons you would like to include in the cascade or in the top portion of the bouquet.

One final tip is to not fill in your cascading bouquet too much. These are typically much looser than traditional bouquets because the flowers come out in so many angles, and you will want to be able to see through the cascade part for sure, and perhaps even through parts of the top as well. Just make sure you sufficiently hide the holder in the middle so nobody sees the secret to your waterfall of flowers.