How to Make the Prettiest Bridal Shower Bow Bouquet with Paper Plates

As the maid of honor in that upcoming wedding, you’ve probably done your research on what duties you have to help the bride prepare for the wedding. Perhaps one of the most daunting tasks for the non-diyer is crafting the bride’s bouquet for the wedding rehearsal, using the ribbons and bows from the bridal shower.

The bridal bow bouquet is a time-honored tradition, and one that you should not overlook, but also one that you should not stress about! Crafting the bouquet from ribbons and bows taken from packages received at the wedding shower is inexpensive and really easy – especially when you make it with paper plates! Follow the steps in this post and you’ll make the prettiest bridal shower bow bouquet for your bride, making her extremely happy at her wedding rehearsal. And, if you need some extra help, there’s a video tutorial on how to make a bridal bow bouquet at the bottom of this post!

Supplies Needed to Make a Bridal Bow Bouquet with Paper Plates

These are the bridal bow bouquet supplies we used to create the bouquet shown in the photos below. Feel free to modify these supplies to fit what you have on hand!

Two coated paper plates
Pencil
Knife
Scissors
Hot glue gun and hot glue
Clear packing tape
3″ wide burlap ribbon
Ribbons and bows from bridal shower packages
Optional: faux flowers or faux greenery

How to Make a Bridal Shower Bow Bouquet

The bride is going to be so pleased with the bow bouquet you create for her! Get ready to be amazed at how easy it is to make this wedding rehearsal staple.

Step One

On the front side of a paper plate, draw a circle with an approximate 4″ diameter. The circle does not have to be perfectly shaped; it just serves as a guide of where you should not punch holes in the plate (see Step Two).

Step Two

Using a knife or pair of sharp scissors, punch holes all over the paper plate, except for in the circle you drew in step one.

Step Three

Separate the bridal shower ribbons from the bows. Once they’re separated, begin threading ribbons through the holes cut into the paper plate, not pulling them too tightly and making sure to leave some space between the paper plate and the ribbon.

Repeat this process until the plate is covered with ribbons and much of the plate is covered.

Step Four

Then, flip the plate over and tie the ends of each ribbon together. Make sure to then cut the ribbons’ trailing ends. The bottom of the paper plate will look a bit messy, but that’s ok!

Step Five

Warm up your hot glue gun, and once the glue is hot enough, start filling in bare spots on the paper plate with pre-made bows.

On this bow bouquet, we used the curling ribbon bows along the outer edge of the paper plate bouquet, because the curly ends could hang off the plate, which looks very pretty! Then, in the center, we hot glued the pre-made bows that look like the ones you find on Christmas presents. These fit in nicely in the center and don’t get in the way of the loopy ribbon threaded throughout the paper plate.

Step Six

To add a little more authenticity to this bridal bow bouquet, we removed the leaves from dollar store flowers and hot glued those into the bow bouquet. We also glued on paper leaves from the bridal shower decorations.

This completes the top half of the bride’s rehearsal bouquet, but the second half is another opportunity to shine!

Step Seven

To create a beautiful bouquet handle, get the second paper plate and roll it into a cone shape. Use the packing tape (or other heavy duty tape) to fasten it along the edge. Make sure it is taped very securely!

Step Eight

Place some hot glue at the bottom of the paper plate handle, and press the end of a piece of 3″ burlap ribbon into the hot glue. Wrap the ribbon up and around the paper plate handle, adding dabs of hot glue as you go.

Step Nine

To make the bow bouquet handle even prettier, repeat the hot glue and ribbon wrapping process with another piece of ribbon – this time wrapping both up and down the bow bouquet’s handle.

Step Ten

To finish making the bridal shower bow bouquet, hot glue the top part of the handle (the exposed paper plate that is sort of folded outward), onto the bottom of the paper plate filled with ribbons on bows. Make sure to glue the handle onto the center part of the plate that is empty and does not have tied ribbons on it.

And with that, your gorgeous bridal bow bouquet made with bridal shower bows is complete!

Please share this post with any maids-of-honor you know and save it to Pinterest to help others find it!