Hi, I am Margaret Flis from Gathered Stems and I am showing you how to make a wedding bouquet today. This is the fun step. We get to take the hydrangea; you may need two, three, four stems depending on the size of the hydrangea. I have some jumbo hydrangea here, so Im just going to need two. So, take those stems and put them in your hand with just your thumb and your first finger wrapped around them loosely. This is going to be the base for the bouquet.

The next flower to add will be your roses. Try to add all of your flowers at an angle because we want to end up with is a domed bouquet. If you put them in straight, you won't have that look. So, weave all of your flowers in through the hydrangea, and you want to just tuck your roses slightly down into the hydrangea. You want to evenly disperse them, so your bouquet is going to look good all the way around. Hydrangea is just such an easy flower to use for this type of thing because it gives you a lot of visual interest, makes a nice full bouquet, comes in lots of different colors. I am kind of adding everything around; its almost like a hand tied bouquet, except with your hydrangea in the middle. So, that is seven roses and I think that looks pretty good.

So, the next step will be to add your stephanotis. So, your stephanotis should all be on stems with your pearls. These Id like to add in little clusters because it makes more of an impact, and these are kind of blending into the bouquet now, but once we add our greenery they are going to stand out very nicely. Again, you are going to want to kind of add them, evenly disperse them throughout, so you can turn your bouquet and not have a front to your bouquet. You want to have it just look nice all the way around. I am adding about 12 stephanotis to this. You buy stephanotis in boxes of 25, so if youre using stephanotis in your bridal bouquet, you might also want to use it in boutonnieres and corsages.

The next step is going to be to add some greenery in here, and you want to kind of follow the pattern that you have started. Start with your Israeli Ruscus; start placing that in - this is where you are really going to start to see the flowers get defined against the hydrangea. Im tucking greenery in through the hydrangea the same way -- all of my stems are coming through just my hands like that.

Next I would add some of Bupleurum; tuck this all in around your roses and your stephanotis. A little bit of a flat spot over here, might need to another rose. Ill let you work with that a little bit, and when I come back, we will cover finishing off the bouquet, just adding some greenery around the outside and tying it off.