Boutonniere Disaster

Trying to go DIY style for your wedding can be a great, fulfilling way to save some cash, but it can also be the worst, most frustrating decision ever. So far in my planning process, I have experienced both of these feelings. Trying to get ahead on some little things for the wedding, I decided to go ahead and try to make my boutonnieres for the guys. Because I planned on using feathers instead of flowers, I was able to go ahead and do them without having to wait until the day before the wedding.

Although I planned on making a few changes color wise, what I had in mind was something along the lines of this:

Umm, yeah right! I actually thought something like this was completely plausible and headed over to Michael’s to get materials. I grabbed some “wirey jewel things” that do not actually have a name and few different styles and colors of ribbon. Because I already planned on incorporating peacock feathers into a few other wedding decorations, I already had several packs of them (several, as in, I bought 100 feathers because I knew I was bound to mess up on something!). Now I was ready to get started!

The “wirey jewel things” were exactly what I wanted and came six to a pack, but they were all wound up together and needed to be separated to start the project. I struggled with them for about half an hour (no joke) and finally got them untangled:

Let the disaster begin! Because the feathers were so flimsy and the “wirey jewel things” were so sturdy, we found it nearly impossible to attach them together in the position that we wanted. We tried every material possible to make these things look decent: hot glue, wooden skewers for grilling, floral tape, regular tape, tie wraps, and the list goes on. Here are a few examples of the ridiculousness that occurred:

Frustrated beyond belief, I decided to quit. I know, I know, quitters never win and winners never quit, but I was so irritated that I could not breathe. Why was this so difficult and how did someone make the boutonniere in the picture so perfect?

Days later, I turned to one of my best friends and bridesmaid, Courtney, and asked for some help. She’s a Martha Stewart of sorts and also a fourth grade teacher, so she definitely has the patience that I severely lack.

I grabbed all the materials and made my way over to her house to try this out one more time. Being as pessimistic as possible, I poured all the stuff out on her table and told her, “good luck!”

After a couple hours of frustration, she was right in my boat. How could this be so hard when it looks so easy? But her optimism rubbed off on me and we started making some progress. After many, seriously, MANY attempts to figure it out, we found out a few things: the skewers actually worked to keep the feather stable, the thin green ribbon looks better than the thick, and double-sided scotch tape is your best friend.

We finally got it down and they were starting to look great! The only problem was that they started to look great after about 3 hours of frustration and we had to make fifteen of them, haha! We made an assembly line to make things a little faster and busted all fifteen out in less than 2 hours. It may have taken two attempts and several hours, but we finally made my DIY project happen!

Here’s an example of our end result. The ribbon is actually a dark, eggplant color, but the camera makes it look maroon:

So, what do you think? I LOVE them and the hard work that went into them makes me appreciate them even more. Each one is a slight bit little different, but that’s what I love about it- they are unique, just like each one of the feathers.

Hopefully my next peacock feather DIY project will not be as frustrating as these little guys. I plan on making some hairpieces for my bridesmaids that look something like this:

If you love me, you’ll cross your fingers and say a little prayer that this project goes quickly and smoothly! I think it will

What are you CREATING this weekend?