What Flowers Should I Have For My Wedding?

You've arranged the venue. You've arranged the dress. The next big decision is 'What flowers should I have for my wedding?'

It's something that's worth taking time to think about, after all your bouquet is going to be in most of your wedding photographs.

Here is a quick round up of the most popular wedding flowers we are being asked for at the moment.

Calla Lilies

Calla lilies have a sophisticated elegance that is unmatched. White callas are very popular for weddings, but there is a wonderful range of colours available.

The near black 'schwarzwalder' calla lily makes a striking focal point of any arrangement and is always a talking point. The yellow/orange variety 'mango' is very popular and bright yellow callas such as 'golden star' are very pretty.

Gerberas (Gerber Daisy)

Gerberas come in a wide variety of colours and are available all year round - which is great news for brides.

They are also known as Gerber daisies in some parts of the world. Gerberas are the classic flower shape, just like we used to draw when we were kids. Maybe that explains their appeal to so many people. They work well in bouquets and also make great table arrangements.

Orchids

Cymbidium orchids make beautiful wedding bouquets. Although the flower heads look delicate, they are in fact amazingly robust.

They can withstand a certain amount of handling and once cut can usually survive several days without water before wilting. This makes them perfect if you are worried that you are getting married late on a hot summer's day, and will your bouquet flowers survive.

Phalaenopsis orchids just ooze grace and style. They can be used as part of a mixed display, or for real wow-factor use them in single flower bouquets and arrangements.

Roses

The classic wedding flower is the rose. There is a mind-boggling variety of roses , each having a different colour, shape, and size.

Ask your florist which will be best for you. Roses also differ from wonderfully fragrant varieties to having practically no smell at all. A great variety of colours are available from red through to yellow, pale green, white and near black.

Tulips

Tulips are a wedding favourite, and with over 500 varieties of cut tulip available, there is plenty of choice. Although the traditional time to expect these flowers is spring, commercial growers have extended the times that these flowers are available to florists to include winter and summer.

Tulips have one peculiar habit. The cut flower keeps growing up to 2 inches (5cm) when it is in water. So if you create a display the night before a wedding, you may find that your beautifully contoured shapes have become irregular by the morning. This is particularly apparent in mixed arrangements.

You can get around this by either: making up on the morning of the wedding, using just tulips (so they all grow a similar amount), or by designing an arrangement where it is not too much of a concern if they grow.

This gives you an idea of the most popular flowers that we are asked for. Of course you do not need to stick to just one flower in your bouquet. You can mix two or more blooms so that they complement one another in terms of colour, size and texture.

Wedding Flower Foliage

Another important part of an arrangement that is often overlooked is the foliage. There was a time when a florist may have put a bit of leatherleaf fern in as a simple background to the flowers. Now creative florists can make use of the large variety of foliage that is available and create wonderful shapes and structures using foliage such as aspidistra leaves, steel grass and phormium.

A traditional foliage to use at weddings is ivy . This works well in bouquets, arrangements and boutonnieres (buttonholes).

I hope that this has helped you answer the question "What flowers shall I have for my wedding?" You can get more information on any of these flowers by clicking on the links on this page.

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