Choosing wedding flowers is an important part of planning a wedding. Flowers make your wedding day special and unique to you. Wedding flowers are the perfect way to signify love, trust, beauty and romance. Brides can work with the wedding florist to choose flowers for every aspect of their special day.
If you are looking for wedding flowers in Suffolk then Tolly's Flowers, based in Newmarket, are an esteemed wedding florist. We specialise in all types of wedding flowers including the bride’s bouquet, bridesmaid’s flowers, buttonholes and corsages.
When you choose Tolly’s Flowers as your wedding florist we can create floral arrangements that show your unique signature and style on your wedding day. When we plan your wedding flowers with you we aim to complement your chosen colours and reflect the bride and groom’s personality.
In this article we look at the bride's bouquet, bridesmaids flowers and buttonholes and corsages – including the history and traditions of these important accessories and guidance on choosing these for your special day.
Wedding Flowers – click here for full information on our wedding services.
Bridal Bouquets
The bridal bouquet is undoubtedly the most important of your wedding flowers. This floral arrangement is the one you can guarantee everybody will be talking about. The bridal bouquet needs to complement the dress, the style of the wedding and the bride’s personality.
The bridal bouquet is steeped in tradition. In ancient times they didn’t contain flowers but strong scented herbs and spices, which were believed to ward off evil spirits and symbolised fidelity. These herbs were sometimes tucked under the bride’s veil rather than being carried as a bouquet. In Tudor England, brides carried marigolds doused in rosewater and ate them when the ceremony had finished as an aphrodisiac!
Later flowers were made part of the wedding ceremony as a symbol of fertility and the first bouquets were made from orange blossom. Orange blossom is now the world's most used wedding flower and mainly popular in Spain, where the tradition is it represents happiness and fulfillment. This is because the orange tree flowers and bears fruit all at the same time.
The tradition of throwing the bridal bouquet stems from England. Female wedding guests used to reach to tear the brides dress and flowers to have her good luck rub off on them. To avoid this the bride would toss her bouquet to the women and run away. In Victorian times, the bride would toss her bouquet to a friend as she left the reception to keep them safe and to pass on good fortune.
Today the bouquet is tossed to unmarried ladies in the belief that whoever catches it will marry next.
Bridal bouquets used to only consist of white flowers as a sign of purity. However today many colours of wedding flowers are available to complement the bride's and bridesmaids' dresses and the overall colour scheme of the wedding.
There is a large range of classic and contemporary shapes of bouquet for you to choose from too. Tolly’s Flowers will advise you on the flowers best suited to your preferred bouquet style. Whether you want contemporary or traditional wedding flowers, your bouquet can be a fully wired shower or a simple hand-tied posy designed just for you.
The most popular designs are trailing waterfall or a long cascading bouquet, which suit taller brides in long, more traditional gowns. Small, bouquets like a hand tied round posy or a bouquet that lies across the arm are better for shorter brides in knee length dresses. Simple single blooms are best for more ornate styles regardless of your height.
However traditional rules don’t have to followed leaving a bride to turn her own ideas into a unique bridal bouquet with the help of a wedding florist, making the possibilities limitless.
Bridesmaids Flowers
The tradition of having bridesmaids as part of the bridal party is many centuries old. As bridesmaids were dressed the same as the bride they were there to fool evil spirits and protect the bride from anything bad happening. Today the bride will choose a colour scheme for the bridesmaids dresses and flowers to complement her own.
Bridesmaid bouquets are often simpler than the bridal bouquet for example a hand tied posy, pomander or for younger bridesmaids a basket arrangement. Gerbera, roses and sweet peas are popular flowers for bridesmaids.
Button Holes and Corsages
The groom’s buttonhole flower is usually one that is present in the bride's bouquet. This tradition dates back from when knights would wear his lady's colours in the form of a handkerchief or ”favour” to show his affection. In some cultures the groom will throw his buttonhole over his shoulder to single male guests in the same manner as the bride throwing her bouquet.
Don’t forget to include buttonholes for the best man, ushers, fathers and grandfathers. These are often a luxurious style buttonhole to co-ordinate with the groom and the colour scheme of the wedding flowers.
We also supply beautiful wedding corsages for important female family members like mothers, aunts and grandmothers.
Buttonholes for the congregation can link the theme of your chosen wedding flowers with your wedding guests. For wedding guests we suggest that you select single stem buttonholes.
Wedding Flowers – click here for full information on our wedding services.
Next month we will look at choosing flowers for churches / ceremony and reception venues and decorating wedding cars.
