Choosing Your Wedding Flowers

Do you need to have a green thumb to decide what flowers you want in your bridal bouquet? Maybe not, but be prepared for an education on flora and fauna. Many brides may feel like a fish out of water when it comes to choosing the most important wedding accessories - the flowers.

The sky is the limit on flower choices. Bridal expects caution that the flowers and bouquets should follow the style and color scheme of the wedding. A heavy, cascading bouquet would look out of place with a bridal gown of a light fabric and small train.

Lisa Weston of Arnold, Missouri, will be marrying Dave Etter on May 20 of this year and has already ordered her flowers. She found a photo in a magazine of bouquets that matched her plum-colored bridesmaids' dresses so she took the photo to her florist. The flowers include pink Gerber daisies (her favorite flower), lavender roses, dark purple Cala lilies, greenery, pearl pins and other fillers. Weston asked the florist to do a sample bouquet before she signed a contract to make sure that she could reproduce it. The florist passed the test and Weston is confident in her florist's design abilities. Weston chose for her bouquet to be the same as the bridesmaids', only larger.

"I always thought I would go with an all-white bouquet but I liked the way they stuck out against my dress," she said.

Besides her eight bridesmaids' bouquets and her own, she is ordering boutonnières for the groomsmen, dads and usher and corsages for the mothers, grandmother, a special aunt and guest book attendant. She ordered two large altar arrangements and a rose to give to each mother during the ceremony.

Dawn Selsor of De Soto, Missouri, got married last August and with a 20-person wedding party made color an integral theme. Her seven bridesmaids alternated in purple and green gowns and so did their flowers. Green hydrangeas filled the bouquets of the attendants in purple and lavender hydrangeas were for the girls in green.

"I got the idea by looking through magazines and picked out hydrangeas," Selsor said.

She said the florist's suggestions were invaluable but she specified all the flowers that were used in the arrangements. Her bridal bouquet was made of white lilies and purple daisies and hydrangeas. Selsor also ordered an abundance of purple flower petals for the flower girl to drop on her way down the aisle.

Theknot.com also offers ideas for the bride that would like to shake things up a bit. To be innovative have the bridesmaids carry different bouquets from one another but with a common theme such as one carrying pale pink peonies, the next with hot pink peonies and the third with magenta. The monochromatic look could include one maid with all purple sweet peas, a second with purple freesias and a third with purple hyacinths.

Theknot.com offers a wonderful idea for exploring color combinations by taking a swatch of the bridesmaids' dress to the paint department of the local home improvement store. Grab favored paint color cards and then take those to the florist to create interesting bouquets full of color.

Brides should remember to take into consideration what time of year they are getting married. Hydrangaes wouldn't have been possible and reasonably priced in April and roses are most plentiful during summer months. A summer wedding in the Midwest means the possibility of great humidity so avoid easy-wilting flowers such as gardenia, lily of the valley and tulips. For a fragrant bouquet choose freesia, lilies, lilacs or tuberoses.

Be sure that the bouquets are not too fragrant or too large and heavy. Be sure to find out if your florist will not only deliver the flowers to the church but service the wedding. Many florists will provide help with pinning corsages, placing arrangements at the church, decorating the wedding cake at the reception hall, etc.