How I Made My Own Wedding Corsages

In my last post I shared a tutorial for DIY wedding boutonnieres. Today I’ll be outlining how I made my own faux flower corsages. One of the reasons I chose to use silk flowers instead of fresh blooms for the corsages was so that I could make them in advance. Since we DIY’ed all of our wedding flowers and decor, it was much less stressful to finish all of the “non-perishables” a few weeks ahead of time. Another reason we chose to make faux corsages? Cost. Fresh corsages are usually priced at $30+ each. I made the five corsages below for less than $20 total.

Corsages are often used in weddings to honor special guests and family members. For our wedding, a corsage was given to each of our mothers and grandmothers. Wrist corsages are also sometimes worn by bridesmaids in lieu of (or in addition to) a bouquet. But they aren’t just for weddings- many girls wear wrist corsages to their proms and other dances. This simple DIY project can be used for any occasion and is easy to customize to fit your colors and theme!

There are a few different options for how to secure your wrist corsage, including elastic wristlets, pearl wristlets, and ribbon. I originally purchased elastic corsage wristlets on Amazon for this project but ultimately decided to use ribbon instead because I thought it looked prettier!

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DIY Wrist Corsages

Supplies:

• Faux flowers & fillers
• Ribbon
• Hot glue gun & sticks

Instructions:

1. Choose your flowers and cut them down to a manageable size. I decided to use these lavender-colored roses for my main flowers, with faux lavender & eucalyptus stems as fillers in addition to some greenery. I “popped” the flowers off their stems and cut the greens into smaller pieces:
2.  Attach your main flowers to one another using a bit of hot glue. The overall shape of your corsage is determined by the angle at which you glue these. As you can see, I secured my roses to each other at a slightly less than 90 degree angle (so that on the wrist, both roses will be opening outward and slightly upward.) I used a dot of hot glue on the stems and held them in place for a few seconds until the glue dried.
3. Add your filler flowers in between your main blooms. Use hot glue to secure each stem to the whole piece. In the pictures below, you can see how I added each piece one at a time. I placed a dot of hot glue on the end of the “filler” stem then wedged it into the center of my arrangement, making sure the glue made contact with the stems of the main roses underneath. 
4. Secure your greenery to the back of the arrangement. After flipping your piece over, attach your greens to the bottom using hot glue. Here’s a photo of my corsages at this stage. If you’re satisfied with the look of your corsage at this point, move on. If not- continue adding flowers, fillers, and/or greenery until you’re happy!
5. Add your ribbon accents. You can skip this step, but I decided to add these ribbon details to the back of my corsage for two reasons. #1: Comfort; try placing your corsage on your wrist at this point- is it scratchy against your skin? Mine was, so I decided to add these satin ribbon accents so that my wrist was touching a more comfortable silky material. #2: Style; these ribbon loops add a bit of color, texture, and volume to the corsage. I made very small, hardly visible accents, but many corsages have much larger ribbon details (full bows, multiple colors, etc.) that look lovely too. To start, I cut four (approx. 3″) pieces of satin ribbon:
6. Fold each piece of ribbon into a loop and secure the ends with a bit of hot glue:
7. Hold one of the loops onto the back of your corsage while you position it from the front. Where you place it depends on how much ribbon you want to show. Flip your corsage over and attach the ribbon loop using hot glue: 
8. Repeat step #7 with the remainder of your ribbon loops. I ended up with a “X” shape on the back of my corsage: Here’s what the corsage looks like from the front. I personally wanted the ribbon to barely show through. The satin ribbon is much more comfortable on the skin now! 
9. Cut a length of ribbon to act as your “bracelet” for securing the corsage to your wrist. Make sure it’s long enough to wrap around your wrist and tie into a bow. If you’re making these corsages for others (like I was), leave the ribbons a little longer- wrist sizes can vary quite a bit! Seal the ends of the ribbon if you’re worried about frays (I  usually heat-seal with a lighter.) Secure the ribbon to the back of your corsage using hot glue. Make sure you’re attaching the ribbon in the right direction- perpendicular to how the corsage will lay on the arm. 

You’re done! Repeat the steps above for each corsage. You can make them all identical, or add some variation using different flowers and/or ribbon colors. Below are some photos of my finished corsages: 

 

This was my first time making corsages and I’m pretty happy with how they turned out (and very happy with the price!)

Corsages & boutonnieres often go hand-in-hand, whether they’re for weddings or proms… If you’re interested in making boutonnieres as well, check out my tutorial – you can match your corsages & boutonnieres by using the same faux flowers for each!

Are you planning to DIY your wedding flowers? Tell me about it in the comments!