Brooch Bouquet DIY

My bouquet is one of my favorite DIY projects from our wedding. It was also the most time-consuming after our backdrop. I almost gave up on the bouquet at one point, until Andrea talked me back into it. (Thanks, Andrea!)  I first saw the idea on Pinterest and fell in love with the idea. I thought it'd go perfectly with some other other vintage touches we had. I searched all over the internet for DIYs on how to make it and found a few helpful posts. For the most part, I figured out how to do this one myself. Since there isn't much out there on how to make your own, I thought I'd share my own method.

I started by collecting brooches. I searched antique shops, flea markets, thrift stores, etc. I didn't find much, and the decent brooches I did find were $10+ each. I knew I couldn't afford this project at that price, knowing I'd need at least 50 brooches. I put the word out to friends and family that I was looking for brooches. I got about 15 that way. I love having meaningful brooches in my bouquet. My favorite one I have belonged to my great-grandma. I used to play with it as a little girl. I love being able to spot which ones were given to me by loved ones. It made my bouquet that much more meaningful. 

At this point, I began to get discouraged that I wouldn't be able to collect enough brooches. That's when I took my search to Etsy. I had to abandon my goal of collecting only vintage. I bought many wholesale brooches on Etsy stores and at fabulousbrooch.com. I bought from this Etsy shop as well as this one. In the end, I used between 75-100 brooches. You can adjust this number based on how big you want your bouquet. I wanted mine to be fuller, so I used more.

The next step was making the brooches into "stems." I purchased floral wire at JoAnn Fabric. This is the ONLY store I could find thick enough wire without going to Menards, Home Depot, etc. I used 22 gauge wire. The next one down is 26 gauge, which isn't thick enough. I used 4-5 rolls of this wire.

Roll out a piece of wire about 3 foot long. Fold it in half. Do this twice. Next, loop the ends of one wire through holes in the brooch. You won't be able to see the wires once the bouquet is all put together unless you look reeeeal closely. You could loop through the actual pin if you're worried about it. But, many of my brooches didn't have a pin on the back so I used the brooch itself to attach the wire. Loop the other wire through the other end of the brooch.

Now, you have two doubled-up wires looped around the brooches. Next, start twisting the wires around each other. This will make it extra sturdy! To start, you can twist with your fingers. As you get going, you will want to use a needle-nose pliers to save your fingers and twist tighter.

Below, you can see how I looped the wire through the brooch. 

When you hold the stem at the end and the brooch doesn't droop over, you'll know you have the right thickness of wire. Making the stems was the most time consuming part of the project. I usually made about 5-10 each night before my fingers would get to tired.

After you have wrapped all your brooches with wire, it's time to wrap them with tape. This step helps to keep all the wire hidden when your stems are in your bouquet. I bought white floral tape to wrap around the stems. I used less than 2 rolls. I made Kevin help me with this step :).

Start the floral tape at the very top and stretch as you wrap to the end.

After you wrap all your stems, it's time to put your bouquet together! I didn't get a picture of this next part. I bought two white fake hydrangeas at Michaels to help give my bouquet a round shape. I experimented with how I wanted to position them all in the bouquet. I added the stems to the hydrangeas until I had it as full as I wanted. (I apologize for not taking a picture of this step!)

Next, I rubber banded all the stems together so they'd be nice and tight when I wrapped them one final time.

I then wrapped all the stems together with floral wire one final time. I didn't want the base to be too thick, so I made sure to wrap them together pretty tightly. Almost done! I cut the stems to make it a bit shorter since I estimated on how long I wanted the stems when I cut the wire. I didn't include a picture of this step, but I then bought a box of pins with white pearls on the end and stuck them in the bottom of the bouquet to cover up the stems and make it look nicer.

To finish it off, I used lace from my mom's wedding dress. I don't know if I'd let my daughter cut up my dress, but she didn't seem to mind! Thanks, Mom :)

I hot-glued the lace on very carefully, making sure I couldn't see the glue under the lace.

My grandma also donated her garter to the cause, which I wrapped around the top of the base. This also helped to hide some of the stems you could see on the bottom. Some of the flowers from the fake hydrangea stuck out, but I liked the look. If you wanted to hide the flower, you'd just need to add more brooches.

I loved having a brooch from my great-grandma, my grandma's garter, and parts of my mom's wedding dress with me as I walked down the aisle. Some thing old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue! :)

Among my other favorites are my peas and carrots that you can see in the middle. Two peas in a pod and a silver carrot. You can also see a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the right hand side.

 

I also got a lot of questions on how much my bouquet weighed! It actually weighted 4 pounds. Everyone was very surprised at the weight when they picked it up. I got my workout in for the day :)

Let me know if you have any questions about my process if you're trying to make your own! This is a project that took many weeks to complete, so don't save it until the last minute! 

Our Wedding: Reception Decor

I want to start by saying if I didn't have so many wonderful helpers, this would have never happened! We set up, assembled, and decorated the reception hall from about 8am-2pm, then again during our rehearsal dinner! It was definitely a huge process and I am so thankful for all the help I had. 

My grandma was tying twine on mason jars pretty much all day, my sister-in-law puffed up countless giant tissue paper balls, our friends Chris and Allison ran errands for us and helped hang up lights, bunting, and put together center pieces. Erin and I starting setting up tables at 8am with the help of Kevin and his mom, my dad and brothers strung SO many lights from the ceiling, and then had to go back through to hang up the puff balls because I forgot to mention that at the beginning :) oops. Kristina came to the rescue helping finish up mason jars, Hannah was a life saver and helped me with so many things, including wrangling up more mason jars when we came up short. My Mom helped so much I could dedicate a whole post to her, Andrea came early and helped set up the center pieces, my grandpa stayed back to pick my sister up from a softball game, and she came straight there, ready to help. I could go on and on and on and I know I am probably missing many people, but my heart swelled so big just seeing everyone come together to help make the day amazing. 

Anyway :) on to the good stuff. This was the sign in the entryway. I made the sign from a wood frame, spray paint, and plywood. This one was my favorite!

Here is our welcoming tables when you walked into the reception. My aunt was awesome and grabbed everything from the ceremony table to set up at the reception before it began.

I'm so glad we made the instagram hashtag for our wedding. I hesitated doing that because I thought it was a little cheesy, but it was so fun looking through everyone's pictures on the drive back to Des Moines. I think it also encouraged people to take more pictures than they might normally.

I made a little kids' activity box out of a small vintage suitcase. I was so busy I never noticed if the kids got into it, but there weren't many crayons or suckers left at the end, so I think it was a hit! I found the coloring book on Pinterest and my mom assembled them.

We used a vintage suitcase as our card box and I made the bunting out of burlap and fabric scraps. Erin flew in 2 days early from Texas to hang out and help me with some final details. I actually had everything done about a week before the wedding, so we did some random projects. She made the two embroidery hoop designs in the front.

The centerpieces turned out so much better than I had even imagined them. I love that photo above. My dad had a friend back home that has some sort of business involving trees or wood (to be honest I really have no idea who he is or what he does!) He showed him some pictures of what I had in mind and he cut the wood pieces for us. He cut over 30 for around $75 I think. We had planned to sell them after the wedding, but dad wasn't on the same page as Mom and I and left them out in the rain. I did save one for myself, however. I've had SO many people ask me where we got them and if they could buy them for us, sadly, they're long gone.

I had been collecting vintage handkerchiefs for the wedding for awhile to also use on the tables. They added a vintage touch and there were a variety of patterns and colors about the tables.

I had also been collecting mason jars with the help of my mom and mother-in-law. We had over 200 of them and used them as drinking glasses (some jars were compromised on the trip to Cedar Falls, RIP.) To encourage everyone to drink form them, I bought tags and twine on Etsy for guests to write their name on as to not lose track of the glass. I also bought the straws from various Etsy shops. We still have some left over and I love drinking out of them. Some genius also saved all the tags people had written on as we cleaned up, and I am so glad to have those. There were some artists in the bunch! My mom had the napkins printed through the Monticello Express.

I loved our cupcake table! I never got a chance to really see it during the reception since it was decorated earlier that day. Our family friend was so awesome and put out the cupcakes and got the table set up before the ceremony and make it look great. I bought the chalkboards at JoAnne's and painted them with acrylic paint. The flowers under the cupcake stand are silk and I LOVE how she did that. The fabric squares at the front were sewn by my mother-in-law many years ago. The cake cutter was my parents' from their wedding. I made the "Love Is Sweet" bunting in front out of burlap and fabric scraps. Our cupcakes came from Scratch in Cedar Falls and were so delicious. We had some leftover at the end but something happened in transit after the reception, and my mom salvaged 2 for us to eat on our anniversary.

This was another chalkboard sign I made (DIY coming soon.) Paper straws are from Etsy.

I made this sock monkey for Kevin last year. We thought we he deserved a spot at the bar!

I had prepped the tissue paper poufs ahead of time, but we didn't fluff them up until we got there to decorate. They would have taken up way too much space in the car and would have been all crinkled. I will put up a DIY of these soon as well. I made about 8 more poufs this summer to hang in my classroom. Everyone keeps telling me it's "so great you could reuse them from your wedding!" but sadly that's not the case. We threw them away. They are too delicate to use twice!

We borrowed many yard games from friends to put out on the deck. Kevin isn't usually much of a dancer at receptions (he was at his own oddly enough) so we thought it'd be nice to have alternative options for those who don't like to dance or watch people dance all night. I think they were mostly used by the kids at our reception but I was glad to have had them there! They were a hit.

It was actually a really hot day despite beautiful weather leading up to that day. At least it didn't rain! My awesome aunt bought a bunch of citronella candles to put out on the porch earlier that day to help with bugs. Seriously though, I have the best family.

This was the backdrop behind the head table. Erin and I constructed it that day. She made the embroidery hoops the day before and we whipped this up in no time! I love how it turned out (considering we were just winging it!).

And now for some of my favorite reception photos. More to come later!

That's my grandpa dancing with my bridesmaid :) I love it!

At the end of the night, the dance floor was still FILLED! That was the best thing ever! We started chanting "7 more songs! 7 more songs!" and our DJ gave us 2 more and praised us for our originality for going with the "7" more songs chant. Haha!

Our venue required us to have everything taken down and out of the building at the end of the night. We had lined up some relatives to help with this, but the help we received from family friends, spouses, etc., was so heartwarming. There were a few times I just stopped to look around when we were cleaning up and thought, "Wow, we are so lucky." Everyone kept telling Kevin and I to "Leave! We'll do it!" but I wanted to be there. To see that level of support was so awesome. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to all who helped us in one way or another on our wedding day.