Your wedding flowers play an important part in adding to the overall look of your wedding. The right floral decorations give your reception venue and ceremony that added ambience, while your bridal bouquet can be the ultimate wedding dress accessory to compliment your gown. But choosing your wedding bouquet and flowers can almost be as hard as deciding on what type of wedding dress you want. How many flowers do you need, where should you use them, what varieties should you choose?
We want every bride’s experience of planning and preparing for their wedding to be as enjoyable and stress-free as possible. So to make choosing your bridal bouquet easier, we’ve laid out what factors you need to consider, and the most common types of wedding bouquets chosen by brides.
Factors to consider
Your budget
The price of your wedding flowers and bridal bouquet depends on the size of your bridal party, how many and how elaborate you want your floral decorations to be, and the types of flowers you want to include. Typically, couples will spend around 10% of their total budget on flowers, so once you know how much you want to spend on your wedding overall, you can work out your budget for any flower arrangements and bouquets from that.
When discussing ideas with your florist, let them know your budget at the start so that they can suggest ideas which fit within your price range. You can also save money by opting for simpler floral decorations or ones that use fewer flowers or less exclusive varieties of blooms, but still add colour to the overall look of your wedding. As an expert in all things floral, your florist will be a brilliant advisor for choosing blooms which will achieve the ambience you’re after while keeping the costs down.
What inspires you
You may know that your favourite flowers are classic roses or delicate carnations, or that you want your bouquets and floral decorations to centre on a specific shade of pink. When you’re beginning to think about your wedding flowers, it’s always a good idea to find photos of beautiful blooms that you love in advance. But also take some time to explore different bouquet and floral ideas that you might not have thought of. To start bringing together your ideas, create a collection of different images on Pinterest, or follow your favourite bridal designers and wedding florists on Instagram to help your vision of the perfect bridal bloom take shape. This will help you to see patterns in the type of bouquets and flower arrangements you like, as well as being useful when you begin to discuss options with your florist.
If you want to choose flowers for their symbolism or seasonality, research into the different blooms and their meanings or seasonality. For example, white carnations are seen as symbols of luck, while azaleas represent femininity. Lily of the Valley, Garden Roses and hydrangeas are all flowers that bloom in spring, while Victorian Lilies and parrot tulips are both winter flowers. The clearer your vision is for your wedding flowers and bouquet, the more productive your conversations with your florist will be, as you can tell or show them the type of blooms that have inspired you.
Keeping it complimentary
When choosing your bridal bouquet and flower decorations, one thing to keep in mind is the theme and colour scheme of your wedding. You want your flowers to compliment the overall look of your wedding, but it can be quite difficult to know what blooms will work well with a certain theme or colour pallette without extensive knowledge of the different types of flowers and greenery available.
For example, you might love tropical flowers such as bird of paradise and blue passion flowers, but these might not fit a rustic-themed wedding in the English countryside. Likewise, rustic bouquets of wildflowers might look out of place at a chic, sophisticated city wedding. It’s also useful to know which flowers are in season at the time of your wedding. Seasonal flowers not only complement seasonal weddings such as winter wonderland affairs, but the flowers are often of better quality and cheaper as they don’t have to be shipped from abroad. This is certainly something to keep in mind for brides wanting to keep costs low.
We recommend bringing swatches, colour palettes and photos of your venue, images of your bridesmaids’ dresses and wedding dress ideas to your consultation with your florist. This will help them to advise which blooms and colours will work well as accents to your wedding and suit the overall look you’re going for.
Bringing in the experts
There are lots of ways that DIY can help to keep the cost of your wedding down, so it’s understandable to consider doing your wedding flowers yourself. Although it may seem cheaper at first to make your own floral decorations, by the time you’ve done all the ordering and arranging your flowers, you might end up wishing you had hired a professional in the first place! An experienced wedding florist will take care of your wedding flowers for you, including delivering and arranging the flowers at your reception and ceremony venues, giving you one less thing to think about in the run-up to your special day.
Different types of wedding bouquets
Classic posy bouquet
A traditional and time-tested bouquet choice, a classic posy bouquet is small enough to be held in your hands and can include most fowers without them overpowering the overall look. Traditionally a posy bouquet will have a more rounded shape, while the stems are often wrapped in ribbon or satin sashes which can be colour coordinated with your wedding theme. You can choose to have a single bloom like roses or have a variety of flower types. They are perfect for bridesmaids and flower girls, as well as brides looking for a smaller, classic bouquet.
Dramatic cascade bouquet
A cascade bouquet, also known as a shower bouquet, contains a dramatic and mesmerising waterfall of beautiful flowers and greenery. It is a statement bouquet style that works well with simplistic wedding dresses and can add colour to your bridal look without going too bright or vibrant. Vines and orchids spilling out of your bouquet look particularly eye-catching, while greenery can be used to create a tapering effect. If you want to give the bouquet a contemporary and elegant feel, integrate bold flowers such as roses and lilies are good choices.
Rustic bouquet
Focussing on a wild assortment of flowers and greenery, the rustic wedding bouquet embraces a ‘freshly-picked’ and unstructured look. It’s a more casual, looser arrangement of flowers than other bridal bouquet styles as the flowers are not held as compactly. This is the best bouquet style for brides who want to create their own wedding bouquet. Simply start on a focal flower then add additional flowers around in a spiral pattern until the bouquet is at a size and shape that suits you. Rustic bouquets are often tied with ribbon, fabric or twine, making them perfect for complimenting a rustic-themed, outdoor or barn wedding.
Round crowd-pleaser bouquet
The round bouquet is probably the most well-recognised wedding bouquet. Round in shape with more flower blooms than greenery, this bridal bouquet focuses on being well balanced in colour and shape. Think of it a little bit like a larger version of the posy bouquet, with more structure and greenery. Often the round bouquet will use one type of colour or flower instead of incorporating a bold statement bloom. This wedding bouquet is ideal for brides looking for a more subtle bouquet style to complement minimalistic wedding dresses.
Simple nosegays bouquet
Nosegay bouquets, sometimes called tussie-mussie, are bouquets that focus more on the greenery than impactful blooms. They work well for bridesmaid bouquets due to their small, compact size. They are round in shape, made up of a compact bunch of flowers encircled by smaller flowers and foliage, all tightly packed and cut to the same length for a uniform look. To add an accent into this bouquet style, think about incorporating a focal flower or colourful fabric wrap. This will help to add interest to the bouquet while maintaining its simplistic appeal. Overall, the traditional nosegay bouquet is a romantic and classic look which compliments small, intimate weddings.
Soft crescent bouquet
These bouquets are a little different from the traditional round styles, as the blooms are arranged in a crescent or soft arch shape. The flowers are more compact in the centre, while the outside blooms extend out of each side of the bouquet in a more tapered shape. A crescent bouquet is a more modern and unique bouquet style than traditional posy, nosegay or round bouquets while still keeping the bouquet style itself simple. Greenery that has a natural drape, such as cascading ivy or star asparagus, and flowers such as amaranthus, ranunculus and wispy blooms work particularly well with this style.
Eye-catching single stem
Sometimes, all you need is one flower that has a huge impact. Instead of choosing an array of flowers, why not choose a single bloom for an impactful yet simple bouquet. Garden roses, king protea, hydrangea, peonies and similar blooms work perfectly for this bouquet style as they offer a subtle accent of a single flower that is both touchingly romantic and sweet. This is a great wedding bouquet option for brides who love a particular type of bloom and want something a little different from traditional bouquets.
At Andrea Hawkes, we want each bride to enjoy every step of planning their wedding, which is why we place our brides at the heart of what we do. From the first wedding dress consultation to our aftercare services, we ensure each of our brides is given a personal service at every step. This comes from our passion for creating own high-quality, stunning wedding dresses centred on minimalistic design, all hand-designed and made in our London studio. We put time and care into the creation of each of our bridal gowns, whether they are created for our bridal collections or bespoke designed for individual brides.
We want each bride who works with us to love their dress as much as we do, so we strive to ensure that their dress is tailored to them. To find out more about what we do, or to book an appointment at our bridal studio, get in touch today.
