Wednesday, January 11, 2017

My Wedding DIY part 5 - the Arch


We created an arch for the ceremony with the help of my mom!
She bought a basic plant structure like this one but a green one as we had decided to cover it with wild ivy in the end

I created a wall of with flowers using the same idea as for the bouquets and the boutonieres: paper flowers. I used printer basic paper, as I felt it was a good way to recycle missed-prints sheets


But this one is very basic and simple. I used this model at first but you can easily cut an approximate clover shape  and have the same effect.
 They don't need a perfect shape as you're going to fold them in 4 to make them look like lily of the valley or orchid kind of flower.
For that just fold them in 4 at the center of the flower and roll up the end of each petal



Once you have made all the flowers, string them together on any kind of string you'd like to use (beading string is usually good ) using a large needle.
I felt 5-7 inch between each flower was a good distance.
If you want to make sure your flowers don't move - like in my case where I was traveling with it- you can add a touch of glue gun under each flower. It's a hassle, but it will make the garland way more solid

You will need 14 flowers per stings (a total of 22 strings in my case) .. And it should look something like this

If you're not attaching them right away to your arch, you should try to pack them separately as they will entangled. If the place where you use it is windy,  I'll advise to add an horizontal transparent string at the bottom of the garland on the arch to stabilize them

My mom use burlap and branches to give some shape to the structure. Then at the last minute added some wild ivy branches to give it a green-fresh look  (pictures above are her tests)