Being a florist, I’m well aware of how many weddings and events have had to be cancelled or postponed this year due to covid-19. I know how upset brides and grooms are, not knowing when their big day, which they’ve been meticulously planning for years, will actually be able to go ahead. Well I’m here to say please don’t worry, it will all happen in the end, and it will be a fantastic day. It may not be your original date, it may not even be the time of year or the guest numbers you were hoping for, but you will get to marry the love of your life, eventually, and that’s what matters. Try to be as positive as you can about this awful situation and use this time to get crafty and create beautiful things for your big day. You could even plan a Craft Night with your maids over video chat – send them a list of items to get, then sit round with a glass of wine and make bits and bobs together, virtually. It will keep your mind focused, and allow you to continue to make strides in your planning process and get a few things ticked off your To Do list.
When I was planning my wedding a few years ago, I wanted to include lots of DIY touches. I’ve always been quite crafty and I loved the thought of filling my wedding with personal things that I’d made myself; and it can also be a good way to keep costs down. It was an autumn wedding, so I used lots of recycled jars filled with acorns, pine cones and leaves which my family, friends and I gathered from our gardens and I made my own jams and bird feeders to give out as favours.
One thing that received lots of positive comments on the day was my homemade confetti. It’s really easy to make, though can be time consuming depending on how much you want to make, but it looks great in pictures and will really give your confetti toss the personal touch. There are companies out there who you can buy biodegradable dried flower confetti from, but I found they were really expensive, it’s much cheaper to do your own, and it’s more fun and satisfying.
Most venues don’t allow confetti anymore unless it is completely natural, so I only used dried flower petals and a couple of boxes of traditional biodegradable sugar paper confetti to add some different colours and textures in there. I made cones with craft paper, washi tape and ribbons that matched my theme and put a handful of confetti in each. I piled them up in an old crate and let my guests grab one as they waked in (it was a relaxed rustic wedding) but you can buy nice favour bags and put one on each seat, if you like, or get the ushers to hand them out on silver platters – what ever floats your boat.
Rose petals work really well, but make sure you separate all the petals, if you keep a head whole it wont dry out properly and will rot. But experiment with whatever flowers you can find, use what is growing in your garden or what ever flowers are reduced in the supermarkets – don’t worry if the flower is going over, just pluck out any bruised or damaged petals and use the rest. Waste not want not! Try delphiniums for a touch of blue, or daisy heads for something a bit different, just make sure you remove all of the stalk from the daisies.
Spread your petals out in a single layer in a cardboard box or crate with kitchen roll or newspaper in the bottom. This will help the drying process by drawing the moisture out of the petals.
Put the box on a sunny windowsill and let the sunshine do the work. Every couple of days just agitate the petals to turn them over and stop any mould from forming. After a while you will notice the petals are no longer soft, they will have changed colour slightly and will now feel crispy. This process can take anywhere from a couple of days if it’s really hot and sunny, to a couple of weeks if it’s dull and cold.
Store your dried confetti in an air-tight container with kitchen roll at the top to soak up any moisture. I successfully kept mine for about a year, but make sure you check it every so often, if the environment is damp around the confetti, or it hasn’t dried out fully it will go mouldy and you’ll have to start again.
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