Bouquets with Brooches and Peacock Feathers

Last month both sides of the family got together for a wedding work night. It was great fun, and I appreciate the fact that this is sometimes rare that the bride and groom's families meet, enjoy each other's company, and share an appreciation for creativity as well as a work ethic. The work party included the bride and groom, all four parents, the groom's sister, my sister and niece and Merri's (and mine too) dear friend. It was a blast. They brought pizza, and we addressed invitations, made thank you cards, scrubbed more labels off of wine bottles, made boutonnières, and put wire on brooches for Merri's bouquet.

Here are the bridesmaid's bouquets. We had a plan, and then we went to Joann's Fabrics. Sometimes keeping an open mind makes things easier. They had the peacock feather arrangement already made, and we liked them, so we changed our plan. We added pearl beads and a metal disc from the jewelry section. Then I bent the stem wire and wrapped it with floral tape.

The boutonnières included peacock feathers. The one shown below is the groom's made by his mom during our work party. His name is Irish so we thought the shamrock with the wishbone was perfect.

On one of our "Wedding Wednesdays" we went into downtown Hillsboro to visit the antique shops for old brooches and jewelry to make her a brooch bouquet. We hit the jackpot at the Hill Theatre Antique Mall. What fun we had rummaging through the baskets of jewelry. They happened to have a sale that day and we found just what we thought we needed. Actually we had never made a brooch bouquet before. After finding the jewelry we set out to Joann's and bought a styrofoam ball, wire, pearl beads, small satin roses, pins, moss, and ribbon. I used lace from an old veil. It all matches her dress perfectly.The bouquet wasn't completed in one sitting. Over a period of a few weeks we worked on it as we had time.