Back in September I blogged about Melina & Paul’s Watertown wedding and since then I’ve had a couple people ask me about how their centerpieces were made. Well, here’s how they did it (themselves).
First you need a sturdy base. A couple days before assembling the flowers, Melina created the topiary base by using pretty glass vases, filling them with plaster, and using bamboo sticks as the trunk of the topiary. Keep in mind, the height and base are really important when constructing your topiary. The taller you make your trunk, the heavier (or wider) you’ll need to make your base. That last thing you want is a topiary to fall on your guests during dinner.
For the head of the topiary, Melina took floral foam balls (soaked in water for a couple hours) and stuck them firmly on top of the bamboo stick trunks. One of the trickiest parts of creating a topiary is preparing the flowers. If you use flowers with a sturdy stem you can stick them directly into the floral foam. However, if you use flowers that are a little more delicate (like the hydrangeas Melina used) you will need to wrap the ends with wire so that the flowers have something a little more substantial to stick into the foam. This will help prevent the flowers from falling out when you transport or move the centerpieces.
Press the ends of each flower firmly into the floral foam starting at bottom and working towards the top. Leave about an inch or less between each flower and try to cover the floral foam so it cannot be seen. Once you press a flower into the foam try not to remove it, instead just place a additional flower next to it to fill in any gaps. Each time you press a flower into the floral foam you create a hole that cannot be fixed afterwards. Therefore, be very careful and plan where you want each flower to placed before pressing into the floral foam.
These centerpieces were prepared 1 day before the wedding and placed in a plastic bid to prevent them from falling over while transporting them to the wedding venue. Melina kept all of her flowers in an air conditioned room and moved them the morning of the wedding.
The final product was dramatic and simply beautiful.
