One of the first things I decided is that I didn't want bouquets made of real flowers. I love flowers, but not when they're cut - I like them to be alive, just on principle, and they don't keep well when they're dead. I'm not a fan of silk flowers, either, but I do like creative alternatives - and from this nebulous notion, the idea of making our bouquets was born.
Bride's bouquet
My bouquet was almost a foregone conclusion - since I first started thinking about weddings in my early 20s, I have always wanted mine to include calla lilies. I designed dresses around the shape of the flower; the very first bead I bought, which launched me down the track towards Phersu Dancing Designs, were little ceramic calla lily flowers to make into earrings for my 'imaginary wedding' project.
Here is an early sketch of my ideas for the bouquet, which was already in a tear-drop shape. My intention here was to use our recently-acquired leather pieces, and some bits of junkyard scraps, like spark plugs, to add interest.
Here is an early sketch of my ideas for the bouquet, which was already in a tear-drop shape. My intention here was to use our recently-acquired leather pieces, and some bits of junkyard scraps, like spark plugs, to add interest.
I'm not sure exactly how it came about, but I started thinking about adding tentacles to the mix, and luckily, we were able to find some online at a reasonable price - but they were the wrong colour. George kindy spray-painted them dark brown for me, then we dry-brushed them with metallic antique gold paint in front of the tv.
Once we had the tentacle 'leaves' sorted, we started work on the leather 'petals'. I would have liked to find some Steampunk-style leather stamps to decorate the leather, but they just weren't to be had, and we ended up deciding against trying to cast our own in George's foundry.
First, I made some paper models of the calla lily shape, which is basically a heart with the bumps smoothed out a bit. After playing around with the shapes, we started cutting them from leather. Then, we curled each flower tightly and tied it with fabric ribbon to try to avoid marking, and soaked them for several days, so that they would 'learn' their new shape.
First, I made some paper models of the calla lily shape, which is basically a heart with the bumps smoothed out a bit. After playing around with the shapes, we started cutting them from leather. Then, we curled each flower tightly and tied it with fabric ribbon to try to avoid marking, and soaked them for several days, so that they would 'learn' their new shape.
When they had soaked and then dried in their curls, we took them out, and I marked where George should punch the rivets. We deliberately made the riveting quite rough, and as we have done throughout, we mixed metals - in this case, steel and copper.
After playing with a few ideas for the stamens, we ended up deciding that we needed MOAR TENTACLES, so we also got some floppier rubber tentacles, which we dyed purple to take the edge off the somewhat disturbing pink shade in which they arrived.
Having made a trial assembly, I then put all the parts of the bridal bouquet into storage for 8 months, so that the assembled bouquet wouldn't get dusty or damaged before the wedding.
In the process of making Katherine's bouquet (see later post), I solved the one remaining conundrum - how to actually assemble the bouquet! I bought a very large number of giant, fluffy chenille pipe-cleaners, which made the weirdest-feeling flower stalks EVAR. Is it heavy? YES. Was it a great idea to but a base on it? YES!
And here I am, holding it, at our ceremony.
And here I am, holding it, at our ceremony.
Bridesmaids' bouquets
The very hardest thing I had to do was narrow down which of my many friends I wanted in the wedding party. I had to come up with elimination criteria - that's how many wonderful women are in my life.
Some of my criteria were:
Does she live overseas?
Does she live locally?
Does she have a lot of other commitments, such as children?
Is she single?
Do we spend a lot of time together, either IRL or virtually?
Can I be honest with her, and will she support my decisions, even if she disagrees with them?
Will she be honest with me, even if it might be hurtful?
Will she fit in with the other girls I have chosen?
Is she someone who will help me stay calm and positive?
Amazingly, I still had over a dozen names on my list. I eventually wore it down to six lovely ladies, and my young niece.
I can tell you right now, there's something about weddings that really helps you figure out who your friends are. It's also important to remember what is best for your friends, so that you can stay friends with them - one of the original bridesmaids had some big changes in her life, and has been off walking around Europe, which is amazing! The best thing about this change in the line-up is that it allowed me to fix another friendship that had been in limbo based on a misunderstanding, so we actually got two wins out of what might have appeared to be a disaster at first.
The final line-up of ladies is as follows:
Some of my criteria were:
Does she live overseas?
Does she live locally?
Does she have a lot of other commitments, such as children?
Is she single?
Do we spend a lot of time together, either IRL or virtually?
Can I be honest with her, and will she support my decisions, even if she disagrees with them?
Will she be honest with me, even if it might be hurtful?
Will she fit in with the other girls I have chosen?
Is she someone who will help me stay calm and positive?
Amazingly, I still had over a dozen names on my list. I eventually wore it down to six lovely ladies, and my young niece.
I can tell you right now, there's something about weddings that really helps you figure out who your friends are. It's also important to remember what is best for your friends, so that you can stay friends with them - one of the original bridesmaids had some big changes in her life, and has been off walking around Europe, which is amazing! The best thing about this change in the line-up is that it allowed me to fix another friendship that had been in limbo based on a misunderstanding, so we actually got two wins out of what might have appeared to be a disaster at first.
The final line-up of ladies is as follows:
Helping the ladies decide on their outfits was a great deal of work (but far more fun!) - in traditional weddings, it's usually a fairly simple, matching dress that complements and compliments the bride. I didn't want this to be all about me, and Steampunk doesn't really do cookie-cutter looks, so we decided that each member of the wedding party would develop a persona, and design their costume around that, which would then inform the bouquet design. As you can see, their outfits turned out really well! (I will talk about the outfits more in another post).
From left to right, we have:
(back row)
Aimee Purvis
Nicole Semple
Katherine Rix
Dale Jenkins
Nicola Giles
Lexi Goodman
(front)
Cat Drayer
Below, we have some of the sketches for the bouquet designs.
(back row)
Aimee Purvis
Nicole Semple
Katherine Rix
Dale Jenkins
Nicola Giles
Lexi Goodman
(front)
Cat Drayer
Below, we have some of the sketches for the bouquet designs.
Lexi - Airship Pirate Captain
Lexi's bouquet came together remarkably easily. On our trip to the USA in March, I found the perfect flat-pack metal puzzle of a ship around which to build it, and the rest kind of just happened. The froth of fabric in the centre is a blue loofah; the cannon balls are bouncy balls from $2 shop party packs, and then there are all kinds of nautical features from all over the place. My favourite find was the placemat that looks just like a coil of rope, saving me from having to somehow attach a coil of rope to the handle. My original design was more like a cone, but I ended up glueing and screwing several of the elements to a cake base, which turned out to be something I used in several of the other 'bouquets' (they're not exactly bunches of flowers anymore, more like exhibition pieces).
Aimee - Camo-entomologist
Aimee likes fairies, so while we played around with some other ideas initially, we eventually narrowed it down to something with wings. The Absynthe fairy would have been great, except that you don't want one bridesmaid wearing all green, when the bride will be wearing all green, so we decided to keep thinking. I eventually came up with the idea of an undercover bug-studier (hence the wings) and Aimee made wings and lots of little bug-features to put all over her costume.
Nicola - Tea Sommelière
Nicola was kind enough to step up as a bridesmaid fairly late in the piece. It made sense, as she had been the main adviser for all of the girly things that freak me out, like hair, make-up, etc - she even did everyone's make-up for the wedding. Nic loves tea, so her persona was really a no-brainer - and she carried it off brilliantly, with a few extra touches like a tea-themed brooch which I made, augmented with the belt-loop tea bottles and strainers that we worked on together. Nic's bouquet was the fastest to make, too - which was lucky!
Dale - Cryptozoologist
Dale was quite happy to be whatever we chose for her to be, so George came up with 'cryptozoologist', which we translated as 'unicorn hunter' - so of course, as soon as I saw the knock-off MLP at the $2 shop, it had to be the centrepiece. Add some magnifying glasses to look at Bigfoot's footprints, and some sieves and tea strainers to catch those elusive Pegasoi, and you're well on your way to a good cryptozoologist bouquet.
Katherine - Canine Beautician
We decided very quickly that Katherine's cute personality suited the Lolita aesthetic, and as she was dog-walking in New York at the time, we thought something over-the-top like 'canine beautician' would be a good persona for a Steampunk Lolita look, so her bouquet is made up of utterly improbable beauty tools, and the amazing fluffy chenille pipe-cleaners that ended up saving the day for my own bouquet. Katherine's is also the only bouquet to light up - but that's because it was the first one I made, and all of the other light strings failed to work :(
Katherine borrowed a tool belt from her brother, and filled it with other grooming tools (and people's phones, and the room key...) to complete the look.
Katherine borrowed a tool belt from her brother, and filled it with other grooming tools (and people's phones, and the room key...) to complete the look.
Nicole - Leporidean Millineress
All the bridesmaids were given carte-blanche with their outfits - the only guidelines were "steampunk" and our colour scheme. Nicole played her cards pretty close to her chest, but with the help of her very creative friends, she came up with an Alice in Wonderland-inspired outfit which I have called a "Rabbit Hatter".
Throwing Bouquet
As you can imagine, I couldn't really picture throwing my own massive bouquet without causing GBH, and I really wanted it to be something the lucky recipient could keep and transport easily, so I made a simple bouquet of feathers and beads to hiff over my shoulder at the appointed time.