The Essentials of Wedding Flowers

Your wedding may be the most important day in your life. This sacred tying of the knot becomes a higher level of your commitment to your significant partner.

On your wedding, flowers are very essential in creating the ambiance that you want for your special day. Wedding flowers are not merely decorations on your wedding. Wedding flowers are much more than that. Wedding flowers are the expressions of your inner self and the love that the groom and the bride have for each other as witnessed by their friends and family. The choice of flowers which to be used for the wedding depends on the message that the soon to be wife and husband would want to say.

So what are the must-haves on your wedding that involve your wedding flowers? All wedding florists ensure these things. You cannot do away with your church wedding without these.

You would need flowers to be placed at the entrance, aisle and the altar. You would also need flowers at the reception which includes the entrance, and table centerpieces. Both the cake table and the guest book table also need beautifully decorated flowers. There must also be flowers at the top of the wedding cake.

At home where the wedding photographer starts taking pictures, there have to be flowers properly arranged with the gown, shoes and all the other wedding symbols.

Aside from the bridal bouquet, the maid of honor and all the bridesmaids should have their own individual bouquets, too. The wedding attendants may also have flowers. The headpieces of the maid of honor and the bridesmaids also are made of flowers. The flower girls’ flower basket and headpiece must not be forgotten. The bride also has a different bouquet to be thrown away. This throwaway bouquet is usually given as complimentary by most florists.

Corsages must also be prepared for the mothers, grandmothers and usherettes while buttonholes/boutonnieres are for the groom’s attendants, best man, grandfathers, fathers, drivers and ushers.

There are a few guide questions in choosing your wedding flowers. “What is the season of our wedding? Would we be using fresh or artificial flowers? Would we take the seasonal flowers or the commonly abundant flowers all year-round? What is the color of our wedding? What message would we like to tell our guests?”

Wedding flowers may be categorized into spring, summer, autumn, winter and anytime classifications. In choosing the kind of wedding flowers, you may consider the season of your wedding. Wedding flowers in season are commonly cheaper and easier to find. But you may also consider the kind of flowers that can be found all through-out the year.

A few spring wedding flowers are the following: tulips, peonies, pansies, fern, greenery, ivy, daffodils, lilies, lilacs, lily of the valley, iris, dogwoods, hyacinth, sweet peas, apple and cherry blossoms, larkspur, forsythia branches and violets.

Summer wedding flowers in the other hand include daisies, asters, iris, roses, dahlias, zinnias, larkspur, stock, calla lilies, Shasta, delphinium, geraniums, hydrangeas, sunflowers, sweet William, greenery, beech leaves, fern, Jacob ladder, goldenrod and meadowsweet.

At fall, wedding flower arrangements include the flowers from the two earlier said seasons which the bride has the preference in having a single type of flower or having a combination of the flowers.

Aster, roses, zinnias, statice, dried hydrangeas, marigolds, chrysanthemums and daisies are a few of the wedding flowers in autumn. Autumn leaves, yarrow, rosehip and rosemary are the commonly used foliage for an autumn wedding.

Winter wedding would include flowers such as orchids, poinsettias, camellias, jasmine, amaryllis, accents of pine, ivy and spruce.

Flowers that can be found easily all through-out the year are carnations, roses, gardenias, baby’s breath, ivy, snapdragons and stephanotis.

The choice between fresh and artificial flowers is easier to make. Most weddings use fresh flowers. It is not only fresh to the viewing eyes, but it also conveys the message of sincerity.

What do different flowers symbolize? Here is a rundown of the flowers and there meanings that the groom and the bride may want to consider in making their choice for their wedding flowers.

Red rose - love
White rose - unity
Yellow rose - joy
Orange rose - passion
Pink rose - secret love, grace and sweetness
Baby’s breath - devotion
Calla lily - beauty
Daisy - romance and innocence
Ivy - fidelity
Carnation - devoted love
Lily of the valley - happiness
Orchid - love and beauty
Stephanotis - marital happiness
Tulips - love and passion
Zinnia - affection

Another essential consideration in picking flowers is budget. Financing wedding flowers may be very costly if not carefully studied. Get flowers that are exact for all the needs of the wedding. Get a package from a wedding florist that has a reasonable price.