DIY Wedding: Make Your Own Hydrangea Bouquets

Hydrangeas are beautifully delicate flowers to use in your wedding bouquets, and they come in a variety of light colors to match your color scheme. Hydrangeas are large clusters of small flowers, and each small flower has four petals and a tiny center. They are very detailed, and they are ideal flowers to make up the bulk of your wedding bouquets.

Select and Purchase Your Hydrangeas

Hydrangeas typically can be found in colors ranging from white to pale green, blue, lavender, and pink. All of the varieties are light colored and have a spring or summer wedding feel to them. Each hydrangea stem has 30-40 tiny flowers on it, arranged in a half-spherical shape at the end. For bridal bouquets, you will need about 6-10 stems, and smaller bridesmaid bouquets can use fewer stems, usually anywhere from 1-6.

Your local florist can probably order hydrangeas for you to pick up and arrange into your bouquets, or your can order online and have the hydrangeas shipped directly to you. One place from which to order is Wedding Hydrangea, which ships boxes of anywhere from 20 to 150 stems, priced at $3.00 to $5.50 per stem, including shipping.

Other Flowers to Include in Hydrangea Bouquets

Peeking out from between your hydrangea clusters, bouquets can also incorporate a number of other flowers and greenery. One popular option is to have a light-colored hydrangea base, and then add bright (and sometimes contrasting) colors of another flower. Roses look great with hydrangeas, as do daisies and most other flowers. If the pastel colors of hydrangeas don't match well with your wedding color scheme, consider getting white hydrangeas as your base and then adding a few other styles of blooms in your wedding colors.

Supplies Needed to Make Your Own Hydrangea Bouquets

To make your own hydrangea bouquets, you will need (in addition to the flowers, of course) a pair of scissors, florist tape, ribbon, and some pins. It is also helpful to have some small vases in which to arrange the flowers before tying them off. You will not want the mouth of the vase to be too wide, or the flowers will not stay as tightly packed as they will be when you tie them.

Steps to Make Hydrangea Bouquets for Your Wedding

First, cut the stems of your hydrangeas at 45º angles. Most of your flowers should have approximately the same length of stems, although you may need to trim the ones on the outside of the bouquet a little bit more to round it off. You will want to arrange the hydrangeas in the vase so that they take on the general shape you want for your bouquet and do not leave any huge gaps, unless of course you have other huge flowers to fill those gaps.

After you have your hydrangeas arranged, figure out where you are going to place your other flowers. You typically will want them to stick out a little bit more than the hydrangeas so they don't get lost, so make sure to not trim their stems too short. The wonderful thing about hydrangeas is that they are flexible and mold to surround anything you put between them, so place your additional flowers wherever you want, taking care to preserve balance in the bouquet.

Once your hydrangea arrangement is done, take it out of the vase and hold it securely while you wrap florist tape around the stems. Then trim off any extra-long bottoms of the stems, and tie ribbon around as much or as little of the stem as you would like. Either tie off the ribbon in a bow, or use the small pins to secure it.