Choosing the Style
of Your Wedding Bouquet

By Delwyn Thomas

Surely, choosing your wedding flowers must be one of the biggest highlights of your coming wedding, however there are a number of factors to consider when you are choosing the style of your wedding bouquets, the flowers  most readily available and  in season will also be a big factor, this will have a big bearing on the price as well, imported flowers will always be more expensive and not nessarily the freshest!

First, the style of gown, if you are tall and slim and wearing a long fitted gown a long slim flowing, perhaps asymetric line wedding bouquet would be gorgeous, choose flowers that naturally  flow,  for example calla lilies, tulips, or dendrobium orchids, or you may prefer a more formal teardrop style of  roses, lisianthus, liliums or frangipani. Wedding bouquets should accent the positive atributes of your body and the line of your gown.

If you are short and a little more cuddly, your wedding bouquet could be long and flowing but a slightly wider trailing bouquet style could be perfect for you, it may accentuate your height and give a slim line. If you are not into that style, then perhaps a hand-tied bunch with a slightly wild look of trailing orchids, vines or beautiful selected leaves flowing from the centre of focal flowers.

Talk to your dress designer and maybe she will  have suggestions. Be careful though, they are rarely flower experts; so often I have had a bride say, 'Oh the dress designer said all this dress needs is a simple bunch of champagne roses!'  Little do they realise  that 'Champagne Roses' are a variety that have small bud size and there are so many more suitable varieties of roses to enhance the gown! Your wedding flowers must represent what you want, however it is so important to be realistic in your expectations. We are dealing with a perishable product, and to keep them looking perfect the whole day we need take care and to be sure you choose a flower that will withstand the rigours of the heat, of handling on the day, and also of the wedding photographer and his/her picture taking endeavours as well!

If possible, bring along a picture of your wedding dress so your wedding flower specialist designer will be able to discuss different options with you.

Visiting the Florist!

Okay, so now you are off to the florist to order your wedding bouquets... And he or she is probably going to baffle you with terms you may have not heard before. Read on, and you will now be able to go there armed with information that at least gets you started.

Types and styles of wedding bouquets

Natural stem posy, also often referred to as a hand tied posy. This bouquet style can be either quite formal or quite informal, depending on the flowers you choose and the style you prefer, here are some possible combinations.

The designer look for the modern bride; we can achieve this with a wonderful combination of large dramatic flowers, maybe exotic orchids or one of the many types of lilies available. The flowers may be grouped or combined with colourful or strong foliages, there are so many great foliages these days. Incorporate into a base of vine or willow with berries or seedpods. Maybe your wedding style is more feminine, with gossamer fine wire strung with pearls, crystals or little florets of hyacinth, tiny, mini rose buds... Or little whorls of petals over the top or wrapped around will give a glorious fairy tale look and catch tiny shining shards of light when you least expect it!

The formal hand-tied wedding bouquet, still the most popular of wedding bouquet styles, is usually all of one type of flower and mostly of all one colour. They may be  roses, lisianthus, lilies, freesias, peonies, vanda or cymbidium orchids, frangipani, tulips or maybe the new Siam tulips. Finished around the base with camellia or magnolia foliage tucked under, or just showing little tips through. This  is a classic style bouquet. Once again you could wrap with the gossamer fine wire with pearls, beads or crystals over the top of the wedding bouquet to repeat the detail on your gown!

Wedding bouquets of Australian bush flowers

Unfortunately all too often when a bride asks for Australian native flowers in her wedding bouquet she is given a combination of flowers that originate in South Africa or another unrelated country, please,  if you want Australian native, UK native, American native or flowers from any chosen country be as specific as possible in regard to the varieties of  flowers you choose.

For Aussie flowers, you may choose, flannel flower, everlasting daisies, banksias, grevilleas, waratahs, Geraldton wax, boronia, kangaroo paw and many more. But dont forget the eucalyptus or blue gum blossoms, foliage and gumnuts. Keep the style simple, a beautiful hand tied bunch of any of these flowers listed will stir the cockles of any home grown Australian's heart!

Country Syle or picked-from-the-garden style wedding bouquets

Lots of girls like to walk down the aisle with what looks like a bunch of wedding flowers casually picked from the garden minutes before the ceremony, a ribbon tied around with the tails flowing in the breeze.

Dont be fooled! This bouquet requires quite an amount of expertise and has been carefully and painstakingly put together to achieve such a carefree look!

First, we dont want it to fall apart. Secondly, the flower varieties have been carefully chosen for their suitability and ability to last right through the ceremony in the  garden or bush setting... And they must continue looking fresh all day, right up untill to the last sip of champagne and wave goodbye.

Look for lavender, garden roses, lilac, pieris, hydrangea, daisies, jasmine buds (the blooms are too strong for most tender noses) leucothoe, lily of the valley, rhododendron, dogwood, heather, daffodils, bluebells, jonquils and  maybe  some herbs such as thyme, rosemary, and heather.

Spring flower wedding bouquets

These very special  spring flowers ( many of which start to appear in winter) are so pretty in wedding bouquets especially if a spring theme is the order of the day!! many of the bulb flowers that create a spring woodland look and feel, evoking visions of massed armfuls of fragrant blooms. First the little bunches of sweet purple violets, followed by freesias, bluebells, daffodils, snowdrops, jonquils , hellebores, gorgeous anemone and ranunculus and  then a little later in the season, sweet peas, lilac, pieris and of course for only a very short sweet time the lily of the valley.

Imagine the little flower girls with little sprigs in their hair and carrying little posies of any of these beauties!

Wired wedding flower bouquets

Now to a different term and technique altogether. For the long flowing multi trailed wedding bouquet, the more formal teardrop style wedding bouquets. Or maybe for posies, where the bride prefers a handle and to not to see wrapped stems. The flowers and foliages are wired to allow the designer to create a shape and style that would not otherwise be possible. There are many flowers, for example, frangipani, gardenias, orchids etc that do not have enough stem length to allow for gathering together into a hand tied bunch. In this instance the stems are cut short. Then a wire is attached (see diagrams in my 'how to do' section). And then all of this is covered with a special tape called parafilm. The parafilm is usually green, and is stretched to cover the wires so that they look a little more natura. It also helps slow down the process of moisture loss from the stem ends. Wiring also enables the designer to use selected foliage, nuts, berries and vines  in a way that makes it look natural, but at the same time, allowing your wedding bouquet to be manipulated to give a very natural or designer look.