The Glamelia

Is an awesome bridal bouquet.  It looks like a giant rose (or a giant camellia) and is made from plucking petals from several roses and gluing them to a base.  I have an issue of the InStyle Weddings Winter 2008 issue and that's where I first saw it.  Someone actually scanned that exact same issue with the glamelia and here it is, take a look:

It was done by Mark Held of Mark's Garden, the famed Los Angeles flower source.

I learned that it was actually a huge thing to do during the 40s and 50s, so picking a glamelia bouquet today would be considered quite old-school and vintage.  Awesome.

I chanced upon this post last year from Brenda of Kuga Designs.  She did a red one and she chronicled how she did it.  It's a lot of work and she says it took forever (give or take 2.5 hours, let's say), but the end result was really beautiful.  Such a beautiful deep red flower.  A beautiful GIANT deep red flower.

 Reading her account and seeing that this is her first try, I say that she did a great job.  However, it did seem to involve backbreaking plucking, selecting (for right size, shape, and color), wiring, and gluing to come up with this creation so just a bit of heads up to brides-to-be out there -- you may pay a premium for labor.  But if this is really what you want, by all means go for it!  They can even serve as centerpieces, but I kinda advice against that unless your florist has an army of workers to do these.

Now, I wonder if the wonderful florists at Dangwa have done something like this. Hmm...