wedding centerpiece
A wedding centerpiece using an Oasis Design Ring is very simple to make and is a convenient "all in one" piece. The water tray is built in, so you don't have to buy separate foam, containers and tape because it's an "all in one piece" designed to use immediately after soaking.
This tutorial focuses on how to correctly green in your design ring or other wreath forms. Once this part is done, you can easily flower in with any color or flower variety you choose.
For this tutorial, you'll need the following products. Keep in mind that if you choose a larger wreath form, you need to allow for another stem or two of your greens.
- 1 10 inch design ring
- 5 stems leather leaf fern
- 2 stems salal tips
- 1 - 2 stems boxwood
- 2 stems seeded eucalyptus
- 5 - 6 blades of Lily Grass
Different types of greens makes your floral arrangements more interesting and stretches your flower budget.
Leather leaf is a wonderful greenery - separate laterals coming off a center stem. Cut the leaves with a sharp knife and strip off the bottom leaves, giving a clean stem to insert into the foam.
Greening centerpieces always follows the same technique. The idea behind greening is that you mimic a live plant. Stop and picture how the individual stems come up from the center and overflow like a fountain. Using the natural curves of the leaves, you should green your centerpieces in the same manner.
Allow your wreath foam to "float soak" in the water, giving it enough time to absorb as much water as possible. The plastic plate won't allow it to sink completely, but you don't want to force it under the water. This could cause air pockets of dry foam, which could be bad for any flower stems inserted into that spot. Max-Life foam absorbs water quickly and you can move on to designing in just minutes.
I always start a wreath form at the bottom by inserting the stems at an upwards angle.
This points the tips of the leather leaf fern downward, with the tips brushing the tabletop.
This helps because a good floral designer want to conceal their mechanics of every wedding centerpiece. What are mechanics? Anything used to create the centerpiece that you don't want to see later, such as the plastic plate, the foam, waterproof tape and more.
Your eyes are drawn to the flowers and greens . . . not the floral supplies.
From the bottom up, the direction of the leaves begin to angle upward, until the ones in the top are straight up and then tilting inward in the center.
As from a top view, you can see how the points of the leaves are clustered in different directions. At this point, I'm calling it "lightly greened". That's because you can still see the foam between the leaves. You don't want it so thickly covered because you need to add in other greenery varieties as well as the flowers. You are now ready to add those other greens to your wedding centerpiece.
