“A bride’s bouquet should represent her on her big day”
Every bride wants her wedding flowers to last forever… we talk to Daisy Overton, who made this a reality by knitting her own floral bouquet
Daisy, an airline pilot who lives in Rutland, with her husband, four guinea pigs and her cat, was excited with the prospect of making flowers that last forever. “I adore real flowers, but a bride’s bouquet should represent her on her big day,” says Daisy. “Not just through colour choice, but the meaning behind the blooms. A bouquet that I’d knitted would represent me more than the flowers I’d choose for my home.” Daisy also wanted something that she could pass on through her family. “Seeing flowers wilt and die is sad, and if they were my wedding flowers that were dying, that would make me even more sad,” she says. “I did think for a while, I could use fabric or felted flowers, but knitting them was a technique I was more familiar with.”
Daisy had seen magazines with bridal bouquets made from all sorts of things, but wanted hers to look like traditional flowers, with a knitted twist. She created a tear-drop shaped bridal bouquet, as well as buttonholes for the male bridal party and her father, a wrist corsage for her mother, and a brooch for the mother of the groom. Daisy designed each flower herself. The basic petal pattern was a simple increase and then decrease. “I used a 2ply Shetland yarn and 2mm needles. Once I had five petals, I sewed them together and used thin floristry wire to hold the shape. I used a faux pearl in the middle
“I held onto the bouquet for the photographs and then put it on display at the reception near the guest book so guests could look at it if they liked – a few took photos of themselves holding it which made me so happy!”
of the flower and a stem from thicker floristry wire from the back. I then wrapped the stem in floristry tape, securing with glue.” Constructing the actual bouquet was a challenge. Daisy followed YouTube floristry tutorials, using her yarny buds instead. “I decided on a loose teardrop shape to suit the style of my dress. My dress was large and quite detailed, so I didn’t want anything to overwhelm the look. I liked the shape and size of the bouquets of Princess Eugenie and the Duchess of Cambridge, so I used those as a guide.” Daisy used a ‘teardrop bouquet form’ with oasis in the centre. “I pinned the leaves and flowers in place and used a glue-gun to secure them! That was nerve-wracking. We were in lockdown so I had an online group of friends who were watching videos of the construction and giving me advice.”
While structuring the bouquet, she noticed it looked like the trailing clematis in her garden. So she continued to construct it with denser flowers at the top, graduating to fewer flowers at the bottom. The faux leaves and foliage were from Dunelm but initially Daisy was using a different brand. “My friend said it looked like the fake plants for fish tanks! So I had to look further for faux greenery that didn’t look plasticky.”
The finishing touch to the bouquet was a memorial charm of Daisy’s late grandpa. “I wanted him to be with me on the day,” she says. On the day, the bouquet had many compliments. “I held onto it for the photographs and then put it on display at the reception near the guest book so guests could look at it if they liked – a few took photos of themselves holding it which made me so happy!” Now the big day is over, Daisy is finding a way of putting it in a big box frame. “I’d like it on display, but also to be preserved well and I need to look at options for this. The groom’s buttonhole, however, is kept safely in our wedding memory box.”