A DIY Boho Bridesmaids Proposal
While I may be an introvert and likewise lean towards keeping my circle of girlfriends small, I have always believed in the importance of connection and in developing strong, meaningful relationships with other women. Introvert or extrovert, I think we’ve all seen recently that humans are social beings and that we crave interaction and close connection with the people in our lives. I’d even go as far to say that building and maintaining those relationships is integral to our health, both mental and physical.
And on my wedding day, you better believe it’s going to be essential to my health that I have my best girlfriends, the women who have been my support system over the years, right there by my side. They’re my cheerleaders, my hype women, the friends I turn to for advice, the close connections that breathe endless life into me. They are always there no matter what life throws my way and there’s no way I could celebrate my wedding day without them. Of course, all these are things I’ve known for years, but I’d never given much thought to how I wanted to “propose” to my bridesmaids until we got engaged.
In the grand scheme of wedding planning, I would recommend working with your S/O to narrow down the details of your bridal party sooner rather than later. For me, I knew right away who I’d have standing by my side, so that was an easy planning decision to check off the list. Your bridal party also plays such an important role in so many aspects of your wedding it’s hard to make future decisions without having put thought into this one. Plus, I could hardly wait to let my people how much it would mean to me to have them a part of this occasion.
I knew I wanted my bridesmaids proposals to match the feel and vibe of our wedding. I wanted them to be classic and timeless, but with the boho flair I aim to bring to all aspects of my life. I’ve also been taking a hard look at how I’m living and whether it’s coming from a place of sustainability. I wanted to gift my bridesmaids with something special that they could put to use. So this isn’t your average bridesmaids proposal with champagne and a punny saying, but I think each of my bridesmaids would agree the proposal was very “me.”
I also knew I wanted to create, energetically bless and gift something special as opposed to simply purchasing something. After much time spent on Instagram, I emphatically decided on creating these beautiful, personalized glass boxes that held a dried floral arrangement for each of my gals.
I, of course, sought out the help of our family’s in-residence creative to assist with this project. We started with these vintage glass jewelry boxes from Amazon and used Colton’s CrikIt to print personalized stickers of each bridesmaid’s named on white CrikIt paper. This was Colton’s first CrikIt project and needless to say, it took a few times of trial and error, but I mean, look how beautiful. . . totally worth it!
I keep going back and forth on fresh flowers and dried florals. Roll up into our apartment and you’ll find both lining our shelves, dressers and basically any blank space that can hold a vase. I’ve always loved fresh flowers, but lately have really been feeling dried arrangements and I decided to share this obsession with my girlfriends as well.
I hand selected the dried flowers for the bouquets from Afloral and Colton and I went to work on creating the arrangements. With the size of our jewelry boxes we had to make shorter arrangements. Initially we were worried how they’d turn out, but they were perfect. I tried to list exactly what I ordered below in case you want to recreate our arrangements.
Preserved Ruscus Bundle - they’re out of the color we used, but they have a few other options available.
You’ll want to grab floral tape if you don’t have any on hand so you can secure the arrangement and I chose this Fringe Chiffon Silk Ribbon to neatly pull the arrangement together.
I’ve always loved personalized notes and snail mail, they’re just so nice to have and remember momentous occasions by. So off to Etsy I went to find notecard for my bridesmaids boxes. I found StandishDesignStudio who created this lovely marbleized, burnt orange/rust-ish color notecard template. After purchasing the template, I could build the card to suit my needs and then print with any company. I’ve used VistaPrint for countless Beautycounter projects, so I just stuck with what I knew.
Of course I wrote a special note to each of my bridesmaids, but I also included a separate card that outlined a general schedule for our wedding weekend (I wanted them to be able to block their calendars well in advance!) and the names and phone numbers for each of the members of the bridal party. I think it’s helpful to provide your wedding date, if you have it, a general idea of what to expect and the contact info for other members of the party to get everyone one the same page early.
I was fortunate to be able to deliver four of my five bridesmaid proposal boxes in-person, so I could’ve just put a bow around the jewelry box, however, I did still want the element of surprise that comes when opening a gift. I found these gift boxes with magnetic closures on Amazon. They were perfect for holding the glass boxes. I wrapped them in cheese cloth for some extra protection before securing them in the larger gift box.
This was the box that I had to packaged up to be mailed off, but it’s the best photo of inside the gift boxes.
I’d been on an orange and grapefruit drying kick at the time and thought the colors matched beautifully and gave the box yet another ethereal detail.
FYI, when drying fruits, everyone’s oven is different, so this may require some trial and error. Time also varies from fruit to fruit and the thickness of each slice is important too.
Preheat oven to 250 degrees
Slice your fruit as thin as possible, the thinner they are, they less time they take to dehydrate.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and arrange your fruit, so they’re not touching, evenly on the sheet.
Place the baking sheet in the oven at 40 minute increments, flipping them every 40 minutes.
Depending on how thinly you were able to slice your fruit, this could take as short as 3-4 hours or as long as all day.
Ok back to the bridesmaids boxes. . . I used the leftover dried florals , dried citrus and a hot glue gun to create a little cluster for the outside of the gift box, wrapping each one up with more chiffon ribbon.
I’m also very invested in how our wedding comes together and feels from an energetic standpoint, so I took the time to sage each of the boxes before closing them up and then one more time after sealing them.
I can’t tell you how proud I was/still am of how these turned out. You know how sometimes when you envision a DIY craft and it turns our terribly. . . I was honestly a little nervous these boxes would go that way when I settled on the idea. I truly could not be more pleased though and don’t think I could have purchased something that would have been as beautiful or meaningful.
I poured my heart into creating these in the very same way that everyone of my bridesmaids has poured their heart into me. Not only was I excited to ask each of my girls to be in our bridal party, but I also was pumped to gift them something meaningful. Seeing their faces light up, hearing their shrilled, “YES!” and sharing some tears of excitement with these women was the icing on the cake.
No matter what you choose to do when asking your bridesmaids to be a part of your wedding it will be special. Hopefully this post inspires you even just a little to get creative with your proposal and to make it representative of you and the friendships you’ve built with the special girlfriends in your life.
Light, Love and the Highest Vibes,
Lon
