The second task in my floristry class was to create a hand bouquet—meaning a bouquet constructed with stems held in hand, rather than inserted into a vase. The result was supposed to be compact, roughly symmetrical and appealing from all sides—something in the vein of a bridal bouquet.

I chose to build mine with a range of bright yellows—various chrysanthemums, daisies, snapdragons and chamomile—with white hydrangeas as the base. The hydrangeas wouldn’t be visible in the end; they just hold everything together.

I admit I started out pretty confident—and let’s just say the process quickly brought be down a few pegs. This hand-held business was much trickier than I thought it would be! It was fussy and stressful and I regretted using the multi-headed chrysanthemums and chamomile because they made it much more complicated to achieve an even distribution and symmetry—in fact, I gave up on symmetry.

Here’s what I started with:

Here’s where I ended—from what I think are the two most flattering angles: