Creating a Stunning Bouquet with Limited Color Options: Sky Blue & Champagne Alternatives

Question
Trying to do flowers for a wedding. The colors are Sky Blue %26 Champagne. I am told champagne is just another color for ivory but it is very hard to find champagne. How do you create a bouquet without the champagne? The sample material I have champagne is light. Do you have any suggestions. Thank You.

Answer
Hi Mary!
Thanks for the question. I'm not sure if you're doing silk or fresh flowers, so I will try to address your question with both considerations:

In fresh flowers, there are many shades of "ivory" that are called various other names, like ecru, off white, ivory, antique and champagne.. Don't get too stuck on the word, but rather the color is what you need to look at. What one supplier calls 'champagne' could match exactly with what another one calls 'ivory'. These colors are mostly found in roses, where the species of flowers is highly manipulated by man.

Depending on when the wedding is taking place, blue flowers will be available in a variety of species, such as delphinium (summer), muscari (spring only), coneflower(summer), and roses (not naturally blue, usually tinted..., and hydrangea (summer). This paired with a champagne toned flower will do well with another color to tie together, like a soft green. Here is an example:

http://www.flowermarttc.com/images/Large_Images/Wed_Bouq-16_Lg.jpg

This bouquet is made up of blue hydrangea, blue delphinium, roses and white stephanotis (which you could leave out).

http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://floralverde.com/blog/wp-content/upload...

This one above is constructed using the soft greens in a great variety of greens.

You can easily omit the champagne color and simply go with all blues. Tone-on-tone is a wonderful way to do a monotone bouquet. Here is an example of that:

http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.bride.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/...

This bouquet offers different tones of blue together that works well. The beauty of flowers is that they go with anything (fabric-wise) that you could be wearing. The colors don't have to match exactly.

This one is a simple mass of blue hydrangea:

http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://media.redgaloshes.com/sq/273/021279.jp...

Here is a link to a floral supplier for roses that I used to use who has a wonderful array of off white roses..

http://www.eufloriaflowers.com/home.html

Click on the "Galleries" link, then select "Rose Galleries".. then you select your color area "Whites/Cream Ivory" and you will see the selection they have.  If you have a good florist, you will be able to take the fabric swatch to them and have them match up with what they can order in.

If you are attempting to do the flowers yourself, you may be limited as to what you can order in as a consumer. Some retailers will help you by allowing you to order cut flowers in for a DIY wedding, but may limit what you can order by what they are ordering for other orders that particular week, unless your quantity deems it worth their while to order in special cuts for you. (They make their money off their labour, not the flowers).


If you're doing silk flowers, its much easier to match colors exactly. The problem with that, however, is that they will look fake, especially with the blue flowers. Be careful you only select flowers that are colored naturally in the colors you are choosing. If you are selecting flowers unnaturally colored, you will cheapen the look of your bouquets.

Whatever method you choose for making your bouquets, always remember to work in odd-numbers. Threes, fives and sevens work the best. For example, if you are doing a champagne colored rose with blue delphinium, and some blue coneflowers, you will likely want to do seven roses, five delphinium blooms, and three coneflowers, and then greens.

There are lots of wonderful greens out there that lend themselves well to different looks that can be achieved.

For a softer, more romantic look, there are various species of ferns, and plumed grasses, as well as herb greens that are amazing in a bouquet (lambs ear).
For a more contemporary and modern look, you could go with eucalyptus, lily grass, bear grass or large glossy leaves such as salal, laurel or magnolia leaves.

I hope this helps.. please contact me again with any further questions!

Cheers!
Melanie Lauren