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This post is part of a DIY Wedding Flower & Decor series in partnership with Bloom Culture Flowers. In this series, you’ll find expert decorating and floral advice from Alison Fleck, design genius and founder of Bloom Culture. We hope you enjoy these posts and find them as valuable as we do!
Fresh flowers on a wedding cake are 100% preferential and some people go hard on them and some people go home. No matter where you land on the cake flower spectrum, we’ve got some great tips for you. Whether you’re working with a boutique bakery to put flowers on your cake or if you have to place the flowers yourself, this tutorial is going to take the stress and guesswork out of putting flowers on a wedding cake!
Supplies you’ll need:
Here’s a list of the supplies and tools you’ll need to do your cake floral:
- Cake
- Snips
- Buttercream (in case you need to repair a spot)
- Small vase for flowers and greenery
The Flower Recipe:
We used the following flowers:
- 1 White Rose
- 1 Terra Cotta Carnation
- 1 Blush Carnation
- 1 White Scabiosa
- Sprays of Delphinium
- Sprays of Wax Flower
- A few Stems of Leather Leaf and Eucalyptus
How to Put Flowers in Your Wedding Cake
Follow these easy steps to make your wedding cake stand out with fresh flowers!
Step 1:
Make sure you set aside the flowers you want to use for your cake. If you are depending on the leftover flowers or if you have a certain amount you know you’ll need, make sure you have a dedicated vase for them and put them in a place people won’t be tempted to use them; we want them to make it to the reception! Make sure to set that vase on the cake table when you are setting up the reception so they are ready to go when the cake arrives. Even If you are working with a bakery and they are putting the flowers on the cake, it’s great to have them ready to go so you don’t have to worry about that later in the day.
Pro tip:
Purchase or request a bit of extra buttercream if you are placing the flowers yourself. That way if (usually when 🙂 you accidentally nick the cake, you can easily touch it up.
Step 2:
Focal Flowers: For cake floral design we approach it a bit differently than we do in most of our other designs. We start with the focal flower instead of greenery. For this design, we want to make sure we focus on the flowers and use the greenery as more of an accent.
For both of the groupings we’ve done on this cake, we start with Focal Flowers. In design 1 we used a large white rose and in design 2 we used two carnations.
Make sure you trim the stem length down but leave enough length for the flower to anchor into the cake, you don’t want it just resting on the cake as it may fall off. Insert the focal flowers at a slight angle.
Pro Tip!
Don’t try to get all of your color palette in one small grouping on the cake. It’s okay to have different colors in different groupings. It will all read as one color palette. You don’t want to have giant groupings just to get all of the colors in!
Step 3:
Greenery: Next we place a few small pieces of greenery. These are only to accentuate the focal flower and help (not to be redundant) create focus. The greenery helps create contrast and frames the focal flowers. I used two types of greenery here: Gunni Eucalyptus and Leather Leaf.
Step 4:
Detail Flowers: After the greenery, I place a few detail flowers. On the first grouping, or Design 1, I use some beautiful blue delphinium blooms. And for the second grouping, Design 2, I use a lovely white scabiosa. This is to help round out the color palette as well as give more texture.
Step 5:
Filler Flowers: Last, I go in with just a few sprays of the filler flower to help break up the larger sizes of flower and again to provide a little more texture and interest. These designs are so small they don’t need much to feel complete.
How to Place Flowers on a Wedding Cake Video Tutorial
Follow along in our Video Tutorial to see just how easy it is to apply each of these steps and DIY your own wedding cake flowers!
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More about Bloom Culture
Doing your own wedding flowers has never been easier. With Bloom Culture, we set you up with a guided approach and a step-by-step process. We give you flower recipes, a supplies list, a timeline, tutorials and so much more! We are your one-stop-shop for all things DIY Flowers and we can ship the flowers directly to your door! Because with us, DIY doesn’t mean do it alone.
Content designed, created, and written by Alison Fleck of Bloom Culture Flowers
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