Building a Beautiful Calla Lily Wedding Bouquet |

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

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.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.

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.

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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.

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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.