There are no hard and fast rules about weddings these days and Our DIY Bride Jess tells us how she got on making her flowers for the wedding. I love the idea of origami flowers and they are perfect for those of you who suffer hay fever and the best part is that you can do them months ahead. With out further ado I give you Jess. ~ Kate
It has been a month since my last blog when I told you all about Rod and I. During this last month I have made a lot of origami flowers (will explain further in just a minute); started my wedding dress; confirmed with my photographer regarding the timings, photo styling etc. and I bought tickets for my mum and I to attend Cwtchfest Wedding Festival on April 17th at Glanusk Estate (Super excited about this! If you have bought your ticket – will see you there! If not – there is still time! Get your tickets here .)
So, the origami flowers – they have filled quite literally every spare moment this month. At the expense of working on my wedding dress. However, I am pleased to say that they are now finished! 
Why origami flowers? OK, so……..
I decided quite early on that I wanted wild flowers at my wedding. However my soon to be husband – Rod gets hay fever, therefore I knew that the quantity of flowers would need to be kept to a minimum. This left me with a dilemma – how will I decorate the venue instead? I have chosen a few options, one of which is origami flowers.
After deciding this I was faced with another dilemma – how to make origami flowers? I printed out images of old maps and blossom trees onto paper and turned to YouTube for inspiration. I watched over 20 different videos (not exaggerating) and became more and more frustrated with each one! They were all so difficult! How on earth was I supposed to do this? With each video I tried to follow I ended up with a screwed up piece of paper – it was an impossible task! How did the people in those videos manage to make it look so easy? Huh? How?! ARRRRHHHH!!!! 
I finally found one video that I managed to follow. As I approached the end of the first flower I realised I was in with a chance of this one actually looking like a flower – it was a break through! The second flower folded well, and the third, fourth, fifth. Before I knew it I had 10 origami flowers. (When I say before I knew it, I mean hours later!) The flowers looked great but they were all the same, I needed more variety.[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqIxVK5mRcM]
The second flower I found was the lotus flower. I was on a roll! Two flowers that were easy to fold. The great thing about the lotus flower was that it were quicker to fold.[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl-lM8cPRfU]
I very quickly decided that I wanted three different types of origami flowers (pending I could find another design that was easy enough for me to fold). So the hunt for the third design was on. I liked the idea of roses, lots of YouTube videos and screwed up pieces of paper later I conceded defeat. This third design nonsense was not going to work out!
One afternoon whilst Googling ‘Wedding Stuff’ I found a blog post on paper roses. They were not strictly origami as the flowers were twisted instead of folded. They were so pretty I knew I wanted to give them a go. The first attempt did not end well! Not one to give up at the first hurdle I turned once again to YouTube. I had been twisting the paper the wrong way – right then, lets’ give this another go. BOOM! It worked. The third design was in the bag!!!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIjtrC12NuU]
I printed more paper with various designs in all sorts of colours. I printed the paper double sided to provide a contrast of colour when folded.
Mum came to stay over one night in order to help make the flowers. We also thought (in our infinite wisdom) that we should try a couple of different bottles of prosecco as we had yet to decide on which one to serve at the wedding. After much chatting, laughing and 3 bottles of prosecco later it was not a pretty sight! We hadn’t even gotten the paper out, let alone made any flowers! I blame mum, she was a bad influence. She blames me – she says I was too easily led! Ha ha! 
A month on and I am pleased to announce that the origami flowers are finished! (I am expected a big round of applause here) They took a long time to finish and in truth I am not sure I will ever feel I have enough but I cannot justify any more time making any more. The flowers will be combined with wild flowers and foliage for the table centre pieces and to decorate the ceremony area. I am also going to use them for the female corsages. I am just hoping that the image of how it looks in my head will come through in reality! As I progress through the upcoming blogs I am sure you will see the origami flowers again as I put together the centre pieces etc.
I have put together three videos showing how to make each of the origami flowers. Hope you find the videos helpful. J
Until next time. Ciao x
