Flower wedding decorations are the final touch just like the icing on the cake. No wedding is truly complete without flowers. A bride would look bare without a beautiful bouquet of flowers.
But where do you start? You can enjoy flicking the pages of magazines and clicking away on the Internet but you may find you have too many ideas and lose your focus.
My advice to couples that start planning their wedding flowers is to look at flowers that previous brides have had, what we call ‘real brides’. It’s o.k. to draw inspiration from celebrity weddings but their ideas might just blow your budget.
My brides take great comfort in seeing what other people have had as it gives them ideas that they can then change and put their own personal mark on.
So I’ve put together a guide to our most popular flower choices and flower wedding decorations.
Vintage Wedding Theme
It’s currently very popular to have a vintage style wedding and we’ve worked on many wedding flowers to fit in with this theme.
Old-fashioned flower choices are a must and include: roses, hydrangeas, lisianthus, stocks, peonies, ranunculus, freesias and veronica. All of these flowers give you a very natural textured look especially if you combine 3 or 4 different types of flowers.
Vintage flower wedding decorations can be created in vintage style buckets, enamel jugs, jam jars, old glass vases or bird cages. Using several types of flowers arranged with foliage such as eucalyptus to give you a perfect vintage look.
Stylish and Structured Designs
By using one type of flower you get a more structured uniformed look. This style of wedding flowers work particularly well with roses and calla lilies.
I’ve created handtied posies and shower bouquets that use just one color and type of flower. A stunning posy packed full of red ‘passion’ roses can look simply stunning. So can a calla lily shower bouquet packed full of lilies.
Other wedding flowers that work particularly well when used on their own are anemones, hydrangeas, orchids and tulips.
Seasonality
The time of year will also affect your choice of flower wedding decorations. It is always best to work with flowers that are in season. This ensures that you get the best quality at a good price.
Popular Spring flowers include: peonies, hydrangeas, anemones, tulips, hyacinths, stocks and freesias.
All of these Spring flowers work well when mixed to give you a natural wild look just like the arrival of this wonderful season.
The choice of Summer flowers is vast, the most popular choice is without a doubt roses. Other flowers that work well when combined with roses include: lisianthus, bouvardia, lilac, snapdragons, lilies, gerberas and veronica.
Tropical themed flowers are also very popular for beach weddings, these include, anthuriums, heliconia, birds of paradise, protea and large leaves such as palm and monstera.
Autumn or fall is a colorful time of the year for flowers. Brides often choose the classic fall colours such as yellow, burnt orange and red. Combining them with vibrant lime green can set all of these colors off.
Popular fall wedding flowers include calla lilies, dahlias, craspedia, roses, Chinese lanterns, freesias and maple leaves in red and orange.
Mixed textured bouquets are often very popular with brides during the fall season.
Now don’t panic if you’re a Winter bride, there are still plenty of flower choices available to you, some of which are my favourites.
During the Winter you could choose from cymbidium orchids, amaryllis, tulips, orchids, ilex berries, mistletoe and pussy willow.
Cost Matters
Before you set your heart on the perfect flower wedding decorations get an idea of price and see if it fits within your budget. Some flowers are far more expensive that others. For instance Phalaenopsis orchids and calla lilies are far more expensive than gerberas.
This doesn’t mean you should rule anything out, it might just be a case of having your favourite flower but just use less of them.
I hope this gives you a few pointers as you start out on the wonderful task of planning your own flower wedding decorations.