Building a Beautiful Calla Lily Wedding Bouquet
By Christopher Yow and FavorIdeas
It's simple: the calla lily is the epitome of elegance. If your venue was the set of Breakfast at Tiffany's, the calla lily would be Audrey Hepburn; if it was Monaco's pink palace, the calla would be Grace Kelly in a taffeta gown.
All fresh flowers are beautiful, but few offer the elegance and versatility of the calla.
Maybe you've thought of designing your own wedding bouquets, centerpieces or altar arrangements. In that case, the calla can provide all the style, color and beauty you've ever dreamed of.
One simply has to glance at a white calla to think of weddings. It occupies a strangely rich space that's both classic and totally modern. Fortunately, beautiful calla lily bouquets are easy to fashion yourself. Here's how to craft a few popular styles:
Create a Simple Hand-Tied Calla Bouquet
For a bouquet that's both simple and elegant, use floral tape to tie together the stems of 10 to 12 calla lilies, about 6 inches below the bloom.
Once secured, using a wide satin ribbon that matches one of your wedding colors, wrap the stems to cover the tape, and finish it off with a simple "shoestring" bow. With this simple hand-tied posey starring the most sophisticated wedding flower, your stroll down the aisle will exude understated elegance.
But perhaps you'd like a little more color in your floral arrangements. In that case, consider the fiery mini calla. Slightly shorter than its willowy cousin, the mini calla offers a tremendous range of colors and amazing versatility. Depending on the season, you can find mini callas in fire engine red, flamingo pink, shocking yellow, sultry violet, and many other hues.
Create a Dramatic Mixed Calla Bouquet
This beautiful bouquet, combining full-sized and mini callas, offers great visual depth and dimension. To create it yourself, place five full-sized white calla lilies in the palm of your hand. Arrange the flowers into a rough arrow shape, with the middle flower being the tallest, and the rest gently sloping down. Now continue to fill out the arrow shape by adding eight mini calla lilies in pink, red, or yellow.
To finish the bouquet, gently close the palm of your hand to bring the stems together and tie off with floral tape. Complete the look by wrapping the stems with a wide satin ribbon of your choice.
Striking Calla Combo: Roses and Callas
Callas look every bit as beautiful in combination with other fresh-cut flowers. Roses and callas are a tremendously popular pair, drawing every eye to your bridal bouquet or centerpieces.
Monochromatic Roses and Callas
Simply alternating roses and callas in similar hues will make for a beautiful, simple hand-tied wedding posy. The flowers' contrasting contours will add richness and visual interest to your bridal bouquet. Another popular look is to give your callas pride of place in the center and surround them with a contrasting bloom.
White Callas, Pink Roses
Don't be afraid to experiment with color. For the pastel atmosphere that fairytales are made of, surround your statuesque callas with a slightly lower ring of soft pink roses.
A Bright Ring of Green
For a more contemporary and unabashedly bold look, surround your callas with the nest of green roses or lime green button mums.
Old-School Romantic Reds
A no-holds-barred romantic wedding with a hint of Old Hollywood glamour calls for the crisp contrast of tall, white callas emerging from a garland of dark red roses.
DIY Callas: All the Details
Caring for Callas
One of the reasons why callas are so popular with DIY brides is their resilience. Like all fresh blooms, callas can suffer bruising or wilting if not properly cared for, but among the ephemeral flowers, callas are on the sturdy side and enjoy an unusually long vase life.
Caring for callas is much like caring for other flowers: immediately remove them from the box on arrival, and cut the stems under running water at a 45 degree angle, approximately an inch from the bottom, to prevent air bubbles from rising internally. Then place in cool water.
Creating a Textured Bouquet
Part of the
calla lily's beauty is its simplicity. Still, callas are so sleek and uniform, a bouquet composed only of standard-sized white callas can look one-dimensional.
The best way to create a striking bouquet is to combine your full-sized callas with minis, either colored or white. White minis offer subtle contrast in the shape of the head and the shading, so even an all-white bouquet of full-sized and mini callas will look richer and more interesting than a bouquet made wholly from standard-sized ones.
Popular DIY Calla Colors
What color combinations do brides most often buy when ordering wholesale calla lilies? This season, many brides are choosing a softly-colored arrangement of six to eight tall white callas surrounded by a complementary array of eight to twelve roses in white, pink or lavender.
The Significant Savings
How much less can you expect to pay for wholesale callas? The answer partly depends on the season, any unexpected setbacks in the flower fields such as storms or pests, and the number of businesses between the grower and your local florist.
But typically, you can expect to shave 30% to 50% off your bill by ordering direct. And with an exotic , tricky-to-grow bloom like callas (and a matching price tag), that adds up to satisfying savings. Just make sure you have the time — and the supportive team players — to help you pull them all together before the big day.
Christopher Yow is the CEO of
Sun King Wholesale, a provider of fresh cut, wholesale flowers to florists, event planners, business owners and the general public.
In addition to overseeing the daily operations and marketing efforts of
Sun King Wholesale, Mr. Yow also travels to Colombia, Costa Rica and Ecuador to inspect fresh cut flower quality, as well as strengthen relationships with the international business community. He lives in Miami, Florida with his beautiful wife Diana Ochoa. Published by special arrangement with FavorIdeas.
im wantin to do cala lilies for my wedding! is it safe to order them from somewhere where they have to ship them? will they be nice? and where is the cheapest place to order them from?
mel,
Try fiftyflowers.com, they are a wholesale buy in bulk style company.
i am trying to do all my floral arrangements for my wedding and wanted to use white,deep purple and “black” callas since those are my wedding colors.my budeget is low,do you think just having 1 of each color in a simple vase is too plain? keep in mind im getting married at the renaissance festival!feel free to email me directly with ideas or suggestions roxxy898@myhelio.com
alex b.,
i think a single calla lily is lovely but for a wedding at a renaissance festival it may look to minimalist and modern. if you are wanting to fit in with the renaissance theme then bowls of faux ( craft store) or fresh grapes or greenery ( which would resemble the more traditional herbs and greenery used then) would be the way to go. using greenery will give you the lush centerpieces needed for this theme while being super easy on your pocket book. leaving the callas to the bouquets. if you still want to add callas just stick a single calla at each place setting along with the greenery/foliage centerpieces. it will be beautiful. plus greenery can be free by just clipping in yours or a friend or relatives garden. ivy is a traditional staple in a renaissance wedding.
Tip: since you are using deep purple callas, then faux grapes in deep purple would be perfect!!!! i have found found faux grapes ( large bunches for $1.99 before and local dollarstores sell them for a dollar though the bunches are smaller than at the craft stores)
saveoncrafts.com will have faux grapes
*faux grapes
another way to stick with the renaissance feel without being pricey, is to have simple dollar baskets filled with fresh bread and butter. if you are having a caterer that does this, i promise your guests will be super thrilled! and no flowers to discard at the end of the evening. edible would have been the way to go then. breadsticks would be awesome! be careful with real fresh fruit though it can be expensive for centerpieces. if you choose fresh fruit, have sturdy parchment paper signs in old world calligraphy that read “fresh fruit please enjoy or please enjoy!”
I am doing my own bouquets for my wedding. I was looking around at local florists which were charging me up to $2000 for my bouquets, bouts, and corsages. In this economy, I CANT AFFORD THAT. Sams club has an amazing deal on bulk mini calla lillies and I am literally saving myself like 90%. BUT my problem is that I do not know how many mini’s to order because I can not figure out how many should go in each hand tied bouquet. I do not want to order too few and not have enough for my wedding. Does ANYONE have ANY advice? Thanks in advance!
teresa,
for a lush bouquet you can consider 30-40. for bm use about 20- 30. i would do a trial run to see if that is how many i wanted to use; if its possible. it really depends on the size of bouquet you want. for a smaller bouquet use 20-30 for your bouquet and 10-15 for bm. an idea is to keep the stems a tad longer and wrap ribbon, it will make a stunning bouquet.
ok so iam having a beach wedding and i really need help with my bouquet!!! i only want one type of flower and with a long stem!!! any ideas!!! i kinda like things that are different than traditional flowers!
ashley,
i would check with a florist cause some flowers wont hold up well in heat. i google imaged casablanca lily wedding bouquet and thought it was the most beautiful flower for this. its a bit common but adding beach grasses to the lily bouquet would make it stand out and be stunning. and if you dont want to carry flowers consider a great bunch of green palms tied with flowing white ribbon. this would be super amazing and chic.
I used a creamy white calla lily with bright purple lisianthus for my bridal bouquets. I had a hand tied ivory ribbon and the attendants had the matching purple. I can’t tell you how gorgeous the looked!!
I would love to know more about how you used the calla lillies and the purple lisianthus. Those are my colors. I would love to have the attendants all purple. Any suggestions?
I would love to see a picture. I am thinking of doing my daughter’s wedding with alstraemeria and calla lilly. I am wondering how you integrated the lizi, on the outside or inside or mixed? I am very nervous but your note gave me courage to do something different!
I am doing a beautiful wedding out of Callas, Bear grass, and Varigated Ivy! It’s super simple, quick, and beautiful. Just braid the ribbon of your choice through the stems, either leave or omit streamers, and tie on a beautiful bow right under the base of the callas. And you can do the same with corsages and bouts! I’ll take pics for everyone to see….www.myspace.com/twinriversflorist
Hope this helps out!
i love calla lillies!
I’ve been looking around and every florist i’ve called has told me that red calla lilies don’t exist i know they do!!! Where can I find them?
Kristin can you stand a touch of burgundy or violet in your red callas? Or you can also do the reddish orange ones. Some are pretty close to just plain red. Try:
Pacific Callas (various tints of red)
Flower Buyer – burgundy
Oregon coastal flowers — take a look at Majestic Red
HTH!
RED CALLAS DO EXIST, YOU MUST BE CALLING WRONG FLORISTS, YOU SHOULD CHECK WITH A LOCAL WHOLESALER OR SAMS.
http://www.favorideas.com/smilies/yahoo_dance.gif …nice site!!!but i need more samples…plzz…esp. the flower buquets of the brides maids & maid of honor!!!
I want to do a corset type ribbon around my calla lilly stems. Could you tell me how to do that?
How do you stop the bottom of the Calla Stem from curling, where it has been cut? Any tips will be greatly appreciated.
Lillian, DenverPlants suggests dipping the bottom of the stem in wax or wrapping a piece of cottonball around it. They also have some other care suggestions which might be helpful.
I think Lilies are pretty– but they DON’T beat out roses. (SORRY)
What’s the best way to wire a calla for a bout so that it is not top heavy?
Using a calla lily to do a groom button hole do I need to wire it? If so How?
Would you please tell me how to handle the oozing from the end of the calla , does it stop after it is out of water for ashort time ? thanks any offer or suggestion i would appreciate glenda
Dip the calla lilies stems in wax!
What type of wax do you mean?