How to DIY a Fiercesome Floral Balloon Arch for Your Wedding

Once you have your venue locked down, it’s likely you won’t be thinking about needing a roof over your head anytime soon ((even more especially if you’ll be doing something outdoors!)). But the fact of the matter remains, an extra, rad roof over you and your new wife or hubby’s heads is hardly superfluous. Fresh flowers and beautiful balloons coming together for an aisle-worthy arch is like the making of a power couple - just like you and boo! Balloons are balloons, they look cute regardless, but for those flowers, you’re going to want to go with the best blooms. FiftyFlowers.com has your back; quite literally, the petal-powered pretty for your back[drop], so keep scrolling for step-by-step instructions on how to create an arch that your guests will go crazy over.

How we toyed with the trend.

You’ve seen floral arches before, right? I mean, they’re not a brand new thing in the wedding world, not by a long shot. That said, we kind of tweaked the look, and included balloons and streamers, to lend a certain mode of multi-purposeness to the overall decorative motif. It can live at your ceremony, your reception, even your after party; in fact, the more moments and photo opps it’s a part of, the merrier.

How to DIY a Fiercesome Floral Balloon Arch for Your Wedding

The colors we worked with weren’t basic, either. Don’t get us wrong, a neutral backdrop, using evergreen blooms is 👌, but something fun and spunky like our adaptation is what really gets the likes. There’s a strong sense of spring+summer here, with the pastel and purple ombre tonality, but there’s also just so much personality and edge when the types of flowers and foliage are considered. Talk about texture, too, with the dried ornamental grass and tropical greens!

What we used.

The flowers, that is. We’ll talk about the other ingredients to our ‘ahhh, that’s epic’ arch a little later.

How to DIY a Fiercesome Floral Balloon Arch for Your Wedding

How we did it.

From the prep to the platform, flower power to the finishing touches.

Prep+Platform

Build your stand - the way we did it (ours was 7.5 ft. high and 6 ft. wide) was surprisingly super easy with 2x4s of lumber and a base to keep it balanced.
Add a grounding color to the base - we used some black paint to make sure it would blend in seamlessly. Black always works.
Build your backdrop (the non-flower part of it) - we went to a local party store and picked up streamers and tablecloths (mixing different looks of plastic and fabric).
Start with a plastic tablecloth and staple it to the structure. **Note, we used a manual stapler because it was so lightweight, but a staple gun would certainly work even better!
Begin placing your streamers - we got a mix of colors, including silver, purple, and iridescent/rainbow and layered them to create a very blended backdrop.
Chop the fabric tablecloth to give it the streamer look and then tie it to the structure.
Continue to do so (chopping the streamers) in varying lengths to give your vision some depth and drama before the flowers join the party.

How to DIY a Fiercesome Floral Balloon Arch for Your Wedding

Flowers.

Drill in your floral cages and space them out evenly - you’ll notice lots of space between each cage, but don’t stress, you’ll have plenty of flowers to cover up those blank spots. **Note, don’t forget to pre-soak your foam so your flowers can drink whilst they’re on display.
Start filling in with flowers - first up? The Palma Phoenix Green Filler (these feel sooo festive, not to mention, if you’ll be going somewhere tropical for your honeymoon, you can bask in the palm frondage for a hot sec before getting back to your reception).
Continue adding the greenery until all the bunches are exhausted, then start grabbing your colors.
Layer on your look with these blooms (in this order) - Lavender Baby’s Breath, Solidago, Dried Eulalia, Royal Crown Roses, Anthurium, Peony Roses, and, finally, the Orchids, because LBH they’re the mic drop moment (they’re also the most delicate, so you definitely don’t want to be layering on top of them).

How to DIY a Fiercesome Floral Balloon Arch for Your Wedding

Insider florist tips.

Because it’s all going to look gorgeous, but these helpful hints will take your maker game from ‘level: it will impress’ to ‘level: s*** that's finesse!!’

Plan on having your Fifty Flowers delivery arrive 2-4 days before your event. This allows sufficient time for the flowers to open.
As soon as your flowers arrive, unpack everything, give the stems a trim, and put the blooms in water with the flower food that Fifty Flowers sends.
Consider different care options for the varieties of flowers. We used a couple different tropical flowers, so we had to be sure to treat those types with more specialized care than the usual protocol (like keeping the petals moist and warm!)
Take advantage of your Fifty Flowers representative and/or their live chat feature. They will be sure to offer the best advice for prepping your flowers.

… And for the roses. Embrace your inner craft goddess.

How to DIY a Fiercesome Floral Balloon Arch for Your Wedding

You’ll want to reflux your roses to achieve that fluttery and bloominous, totally on-trend RN look.

To do this, all you have to do is gently fold back the outer petals one by one until you’re content with how cool your roses look.

Framework by balloons.

We said our floral arch marched to the beat of a different 🥁, didn’t we? Well, it all happened with a simple balloon garland, and, seriously, it wasn’t that challenging. All you’ll need is balloons (matched to your floral color palette and in a variety of sizes), an electric air balloon pump and a balloon arch kit (you can get these at any cool e-commerce party emporium, but we went with Amazon, because #wevegotitbookmarked)

Blow up your balloons with the electric pump.
Start to assemble your garland. The balloon arch kit comes with a long plastic strip with little holes. Pull the tie of the balloon through the hole. You can do whatever pattern you’d like, just be sure to mix up different sizes and colors as you place balloons through each hole.
Once you’re finished threading the balloons, secure the balloon arch with some tape and string on the back of the structure. Use the balloon tape that comes with the kit to fill in any gaps in your arch.
For any left over balloons, scatter/float them loosely in front of the backdrop. It has that senior prom, throwback kind of vibe, which is super fun (especially if you’re doing an after party!). #justaddpunch. It can be spiked now 😉.

How to DIY a Fiercesome Floral Balloon Arch for Your Wedding