Wedding Day Brooch Bouquet

Back in August, I wrote a blog post and included photos of my fabric and bead flowers prior to construction of my brooch bouquet. Now that the wedding has come and gone, it is time to reveal my fabric flower/brooch bouquet in all its colourful glory!

The wedding colours were sky blue, yellow and red. And for the record,I LOVE my bouquet! I know many will think it's incredibly gaudy, but I just don't care; anyone who knows my personality would know that it fits me perfectly! And I'm so glad I'll be able to keep this memento of a wonderful day for decades.

The fabric and felt flowers were made by me, and the brooch and bead flowers were made by my excellent friend, Sheila, of Elegant Simplicity Jewellery Design. She had originally put the bouquet together herself temporarily, but being the picky bride that I am, I decided to start afresh, and ended up taking it apart and putting it together myself, adding the feathers, bead strings, and white ribbon at the base of the bouquet. It was unsurprisingly heavy, as you can imagine.

I may write a post in the future on how to make your own brooch bouquet, but considering how much money this little thing cost, and how many grey hairs Sheila and I both grew working on this for literally MONTHS, my advice right now is to just go out and commission one from a trusted vendor. Depending on your preferences, they go for as little as $50, up to about $1000 (no kidding!).  Check out Etsy sometime; you will be amazed.

To the right is my favourite photo of me holding the bouquet, just as the processional music played and I went to meet the love of my life on the top deck of the yacht, anchored at Toronto's Hanlan's Point lagoon with the city sky-scape in the background. We were married in front of a small group of our family and friends, while the CNE Airshow swooped and screamed in the sky just to the West of us (fun times!), and I barely remember any of it from my nervousness, lol...

If I had the opportunity for a "do-over", I probably should have taken the Hubster's advice and just got married at City Hall, had an awesome sit down dinner afterwards at a fancy resto downtown (360 in the CN Tower, anyone?), then spent the next two weeks living it up in Paris. But...this is what I chose. I don't actually regret my choice; when I play the "what if" game, I know that I would have always regretted not having a family wedding...but there will always be a part of me that wonders.

I would still have totally made this kick-ass bouquet, though.