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For the most part, boutonnieres can be often over-looked and under-whelming. But the same can not be said for the alternative boutonnieres we've collected here! Succulents, gears, LEGOs, My Little Ponies, paper flowers, so much more!
Some of these alternative boutonnieres were featured previously in real wedding profiles.
Orkaiya shared this alternative boutonniere with us explaining, “I had found a lovely girl from UK who makes these felt flowers. I ordered a batch of them for family and bridal parties. It added a playfulness to the day.”
Found these feathers used as a boutonniere/pocket fold kind of a situation from a Sonoma vinyard wedding, shot by Nancy Neil.
Origami boutonniere! Thanks to mysoldiergirl for the of this origami boutonniere that matches the groom's orange tie.
I can't tell you much about this bad-ass steampunk boutonniere, except that it was made by the same person who created Katarina's equally bad-ass bouquet.
I LOVE this Lego boutonniere, there's just something about the traditional flower bout accented with a silly Joker Lego. Of course, you could go all out on your Lego bouts like this one…
Offbeat Bride reader SamIAm created these Lego boutonnieres for all the groomsman, the groom, and their dads.
Of course there are pretty button boutonnieres from non other than Princess Lasertron.
This skull boutonniere is perfect for a Dia de los Muertos wedding party. Of course it's from Melissa and Phil's Day of the Dead wedding.
Love love LOVE this asparagus boutonniere! I like the bride's description: “Peter said that he wanted to eat his boutonniere after the ceremony… so our florist gave him some asparagus.”
This bout was made by the bride and it's got felt, buttons, tulle, and… who knows what else! It's got it all.
These crystal boutonnieres were hand-made by an Offbeat Bride reader, and the how-to can be found here.
Iain's fabulous paper flower boutonniere from Bookworm Eats Flowers.
I also can't tell you much about this boutonniere… except that it's RAD! … and made of beads.
The bride, Brooke made these and explains, “There's a couple of cute needle-felted acorns with little acorn caps attached, a couple of burgundy feathers and a tiny sprig of greenery. Since both my husband-to-be's and a few other groomsmen's shirts were without pockets, we decided to use them as lapel pins… it worked!”
A My Little Pony boutonniere that I encountered at Djinnaya and Jason's wedding! Yeah, go ahead, be jealous, I know I was.
Oh I LOVE these pinwheel boutonnieres. Yes — pinwheel mother fucking boutonnieres.
This boutonniere is from Nicole & Glenn's wedding and it seems that Nicole made that fabulous thing… “The bouquets, buttonholes and decorations were concocted from wrist watch parts, feathers, beads, old maps of London, miniature plastic bicycles, sticks and other bits and pieces.”
For this Harry Potter themed wedding the they used keys and ribbon instead of flowers.
Our reader GreatB made these boutonnieres for her bridal party from peacock feathers, glass beads, floral tape, ribbon, and wire.
I'm a sucker for succulent boutonnieres. Flickr member Hortulus explains, “Because the groom has recently been smitten with succulent plants, I came up with the idea of using Sempervivums as boutonnieres. I chose this genus as I thought they would be the most durable during all the hugging inevitable at such an event. And they held up surprisingly well!”
I… gotta admit to you that I have NO IDEA what this involves, but it's awesome. And it looked great on the kids too! [EDITOR'S NOTE: Wil from the American Institute of Floral Designers tells us that this is “Eryginium (blue thistle) Scabiosa pod (Pin cushion) and Yellow Anygozanthus (Kangaroo Paw), twig (birch).” Thanks, Wil!]
I love these “buttonieres” from our reader WindlessMeadow who explains, “A family friend was going on and on about how we HAD to have boutonnieres… just HAD TO. So, this is what we came up with! They're made by ViaDelia on Etsy. I think they're hilarious and are sure to shut-up said family friend.”
Of course if you've got your own bad-ass boutonniere idea/example/etc., leave 'em in the comments.
About the Author: Megan Finley Horowitz
When Megan's not writing, traveling, and sleeping, she's eating like the fate of the world depends on it. (You're welcome, world!) You can snoop into her personal life over on her website The Dash and Dine!
Cheeky buttons FTW!
I really hope the “pinwheel mother fucking boutonnieres” really work, because that would rock my word.
Thanks for these great ideas!
they did work 🙂
must say the buttons are my favorite. but my little pony and lapel pins are rocking pretty hard as well!
we used air plant boutonnieres! very simple, beautiful& funky, plus they’re living souvenirs! we got them on etsy from toHOLD (hope its ok to mention the business in this! she was just so wonderful to work with!)
The last ones are great! May have to steal that one 😛
Aaahhh. too many favourites!!
Love the lego, Dia de los muertos and the Bookworm Eats Flower ones best though!!
Awesome!
Yet another reason for me to stop putting off making these… I’ll post pictures asap!
We used finger puppets, and they were *awesome*. Posted the one good picture I’ve already got on flickr to the pool.
ooh! love that idea! let’s see!
i was psyched to see my husband’s bout featured in this post… it was def one of my favorite details. 🙂
My husband loves fly fishing and made his own “bouts” with his flies. His idea!
The picture of the pinwheels is from my sisters wedding. I was the the maid of honor in that exact wedding! We had giant pinwheels for our bouquets and since I was the maid of honor I was the only one with a pinwheel as my hairpiece.It was a wonderful and fun wedding!
Oh hey, that’s one of my key bouts! Rock on! They were so easy to make, but fuuuuuun!
I love the whole idea of boutonniere. Like sock garters & spats…I’m glad they’re back. I’d love to incorporate them into some of my own designs. Lovely post!
The second from last one is made from scabiosa pod (the round thingy), Kangaroo paw (yellow) and erengium (sp? also called sea holly), all available from your florist.
the lego one makes me die! i hadn’t thought about a bout for my betrothed very much, but this sounds like a great idea! time to get crafty! i think the hardest part will be deciding which lego to use…
I’m making my honey a bacon rose. We’ll also be using them, along with succulents, in my bouquet.
These are all awesome!
I’m in the process of making the groom & groomsmen shotgun shell boutineers. I’ll post a photo after they are done.
Awesome, we plan on doing the Elven leaf brooches from Lord of The Rings as boutineers (and Arwen’s Evenstar necklaces for each of the bridesmaids!), because we’re huge nerds. 🙂
i wish i had a pic to send you, but we were so busy in vegas i didn’t have a chance to get a picture of my husband’s. I asked him what he wanted in his boutineer, and he decided on a ninja throwing star. my mother cursed us for requesting it, but she pulled it off with only a few nicks.
The one you said you had no idea about, those weird yellow flowers are Australian kangaroo paw, the white I think is geraldton wax and the blue are thistle flowers I think.
While not quite badass, our boys had brooch boutonnières in our 2011 wedding http://offbeatwed.com/2012/05/canada-colourful-wedding 🙂
LOVE LOVE LOVE the Lego boutonnières … Brilliant!! 🙂
I made all of my husband’s superhero boutonnieres out of silk flowers, ribbon and action figure keychains!! His was Wolverine. Great post. Photo credit to the awesomely talented Cat and Al of BG Productions.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151761577838748&set=t.9318069&type=3&theater
Question- is it a big no no for the guys to not have any buttonholes? I want a felt and button bouquet but we are not so keen on how the buttonholes look and we have both decided we don’t really care about them. We dont want real flowers with the felt bouquets and there is nothing else that is really “us”. The only thing I am considering is succulents because we want to use them in our table decorations but again I don’t know if a mix of real and fake will look strange. I’ve searched the net and apparently everyone seems to have something. Thanks
We had an entomology/comic-book themed wedding (I am the entomologist) and I actually pinned and spread cicadas for our boutonnieres – wish I could share a picture of them – they turned out fantastic!
We had a friend make our boutonnieres out of chainmaille for us and we actually had a random stranger come up to us in the park while we were taking pre-wedding pics to admire them.
My husband’s boutonnière was a peacock feather and lavender to match my bouquet. I made them both.
Hi,
I was wondering where you purchased your lego boutonniere’s from? Would love it for my wedding.