Natural Armature Bridal Bouquet

Building a bridal bouquet on an armature is a current hot trend. Bouquets can be built on chicken wire forms, plastic pillows and eggs. In this video how-to demonstration Leanne re-visits the classic natural armature of curly willow. It’s a proven mechanic, it’s natural, organic and fully biodegradable. For the flowers Leanne stays on trend with gorgeous garden roses and peonies. You will love this fabulous bouquet. Enjoy!

Video Transcription 


Welcome to the Flower School .com video library. I'm Leanne Kessler, Director of the Floral Design Institute and today I'm here to share with you a fabulous bridal bouquet. 


For the flowers, staying on trend. Fabulous garden roses, peonies then moving over to the darker with leucadendron, antique carnations, and wax flower. The mechanics, we all have seen the different things using floral netting, using pillows and eggs. Today, an armature made of curly willow. An organic way to design and still give yourself structure. I just took curly willow, wound it together and then tied it off with bind wire. Now, we're ready to flower. 


Once the armature is done, it's so easy. You can do this way in advance. You can add foliage or not. I'm going to do a little Italian ruscus. I'm just placing it in and then wrapping it and feeding it back through, then using just a single piece of bind wire, lashing it together. So it gives me a nice base to support the flowers. Then, thinking about the materials, maybe a little bit of wax flower, feeding it through and down, and another. Everything going through a central binding point, which will then support the flowers as you work. You can see each stage starts getting a little prettier. You get some nice texture going on. Maybe a little bit of the leucadendron. As you're working, everything below your hand stays totally clean and bare, everything above your hand is where the beauty lies. 


The textural nest is now ready to support the flowers. You can take individual garden roses, feeding them down in, letting it nestle in place. A beautiful peony, tucking it down, just weaving it through. Once you get it in place you can pull it from the bottom, give it a little tug. Maybe one of the beautiful antique carnations, coming back and adding in roses and peonies until you have it full and lush. 


You can see the top is beautiful, but you want to go back and finish off the back side so it's equally as beautiful. Maybe adding in some of the leucadendron, little bit of wax flower, bringing a peony in, adding depth, then turn and repeat that, just tucking in a few more blooms until you get the back as beautiful as the front. 


Once you're happy with the placement, take a moment and look at it in the mirror. See how it looks from the front side. Then, when you're happy, go back and tie it off. Use bind wire, twine, raffia, whatever you love the most. Just cut it, wrap, secure it together. You can cover it with a ribbon later or a leaf then cut the stems down, about one hand length to be the perfect size. 


The finished bouquet, tied off with just a bit of ribbon, covers up your mechanics and it's a beautiful bouquet for a bride to carry or set it in a vase and enjoy it on the table. 


For more creative inspiration, check out the website at Flower School .com. If you have questions you can reach us through there or pick up the telephone and give me a call at 503-223-8089 because now it's your turn. I want to see what you create. Gather some beautiful flowers, design yourself an armature. Create the beauty and then take a photo. Post it on social media and tag Floral Design Institute. That way we all can see as you do something you love.

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