Choosing the ideal wedding flowers are difficult. Your decision will probably be based on a number of factors, including what is in season, the theme of your wedding, the colour scheme, etc.

The colour scheme is by far, the most important when choosing your wedding flowers. You want something that matches everything, from the brides maid dresses to the reception decor. You may also want to save a few bucks by arranging the flowers yourself for your wedding. A lot of brides to be ask what I recommend for wedding flowers, colours, and designs- so I will share my knowledge (having been married twice now) as well as designed a lot of my friend’s and family member’s wedding flowers.

First lets start with WHERE TO SHOP:

Be smart, when it comes to wedding flowers, shop around for the best wholesaler. Wholesale flowers will be far less expensive, and based o the supplier, fresher. Try to stay away from local florist shops, they design beautiful wedding flowers, but if you are looking to cut costs, this is not a place to go. If money is no option, then solicit a professional florists services. In Canada, the only flower wholesaler is http://flowerswholesale.ca.

Now let’s look at FLOWER TYPES:

When choosing your flower, be conscious of the availability for your wedding. Don’t pick tulips if you are getting married in Autumn…you’ll pay premium prices for imported tulips.

Pick flowers that are hardy and do not require a lot of careful handling or maintenance. Remember, once you get your flowers from the wholesaler, you have to arrange them in vases or bouquets typically the night before the wedding. Great options for this are: roses, carnations, calla lilies, Asiatic lilies, oriental lilies, mums and daisies

What is especially nice about the above mentioned flowers, are that they are available year round, so no extra premium for imports from far countries.

After flower types, comes the all too important FLOWER COLOUR:

Brides have their dream wedding planned in their heads, they picked the colour of the brides maid dresses, the candles, decorations- but ladies remember this: all of these can match in colours exactly, because they aren’t controlled by mother nature. The biggest disappointment brides to be face when receiving with their wedding flowers are the colours. Flowers do not have the luxury of coming custom made in any colour and shade you wish, although their colour schemes are vast, they are not necessarily available to all growers and wholesalers. My post called “Can You Spot the Difference” addresses just that, the various colour combinations of roses.

This is not just limited to roses, but to almost every flower type out there. Check this out, I googled purple calla lilies, and this is what came up:

Can you imagine that! Now imagine you would have asked the wholesaler for purple calla lilies! God knows what you would have received. Be specific with your colour without being unreasonable. Even though you order “hot pink roses”, does not mean it only comes in 1 colour. There are about 8 different shades of “hot pink roses”. My cousin ordered wholesale roses, she asked for lavendar roses. When her wedding flowers arrived, she immediately called the wholesaler to complaint that her roses where pink. I looked at the roses, and thought they indead where lavendar, but they were not the shade of lavendar to match the brides maid dresses! It certainlly didn’t mean they weren’t lavendar, only not lavendar enough for her.

So, ladies, when choosing your wedding flower colours be open minded that they probably will not be the exact shade you have in your mind. Despite your disappointment, you have to realize that the wholesaler doesn’t go to Colombia, Ecuador, or California and pick your wedding flowers from the growers to ensure you will receive the shade you desire.

What I strongly suggest, is two shades of the colour. I did this for my second wedding, and it was beautiful. I had two shades of purple roses, with white calla lilies in the middle of the arrangement. My niece liked the concept, and went with red roses with white calla lilies, also incredibly beautiful.

And now for the Grand Finale- ARRANGING THE FLOWERS:

Here enters your artistic style, I have seen and read MANY unique ideas for decorating. Among some of the best are in wedding magasins, websites, and forums. Many will share tips and designs with brides to be, some of the designs can be a last minute collaboration with friends that are arranging. I try and refrain from complex arrangements because time is a factor when doing your wedding flowers yourself. The over handling of the flowers can cause them to prematurely wilt, so minimal handling I find is best.

Happy designing!

Taken from Nuptia.ca wedding site, with permission Written by Gabby Savoy

Tuesday, 30 September 2008

If you’re looking to save money on your wedding, think about arranging the flowers yourself. Here some tips if you choose to go this route: First of all, spend as much time as possible at botanic gardens, wholesale stores, and farmers’ markets. Ask questions and take notes. You can get the flowers from a wholesale market, on-line, or from local growers. Up to 70 per cent of flowers are available year-round, but remember that there are some types that are truly seasonal. How to make your wedding bouquet and boutonnieres The easiest bouquet to make is a hand-tied bouquet, and the best flowers for this type of bouquet are roses. You can make a hand-tied bouquet by holding a stem in one hand and adding other stems around in it a spiral fashion. Keep in mind that roses are fragile and living things, so if they don’t turn out exactly how you expected, be patient! Here’s a step by step guide: Bouquet: 1. Clean and cut each stem diagonally and place them in water. Do this for about 18 – 24 rose stems, and don’t forget to remove the leaves and thorns. This can be done with a damp towel or dishwashing cloth. Keep roses in water. 2. Take the largest flower of the bunch – this will be the center of your bouquet. Add extra flowers evenly around the center flower, tucking them just below the head. Allow the stems to cross at the bottom by turning the bouquet clockwise (at 45 degrees) as you work. 3. Once you have all the roses secured at 45 degree angles, add some greenery or/and fill flowers to give your bouquet a decorative cuff. Secure the fill flowers with clear sticky-tape and/or an elastic band. 4. Now take the green florist tape and wind it tightly around the stems, five cm from where you want to cut the stems. 5. Take the fabric strip (make sure the edges have been finished off or sewn into a “tube” so that the raw edges are inside the tube) and wind this around the stems and pin in place with decorative florist pins. 6. Now cut the stems. Boutonnieres 1. Use a single rose and fill flowers. 2. Position the rose in the middle of the greenery and add extra fill flowers so that they frame the rose. 3. Use clear tape to hold cut stems together at the desired length. 4. Wind the green florist tape around the stems – cover the stems completely. Secure with decorative florist’s pin.

The rose has always been treasured for its beauty and has a long history of symbolism. The ancient Greeks and Romans identified the rose with their goddesses of love referred to as Aphrodite and Venus. Romans placed a wild rose at the door of a room where secret or private matters were discussed.

Classification of roses can be quite difficult because many modern roses have old garden roses in their ancestry and their form varies so much.

The favourite rose for much of the history of modern roses, hybrid teas were initially created by hybridizing Hybrid Perpetuals with Tea roses in the late 1800s.The hybrid tea remains the standard rose of the floral industry.

Floribunda class roses; an offspring cross of Hybrid Teas are similar, and can visually be confused with the Hybrid Teas. Rose breeders quickly saw the value in crossing polyanthas with hybrid teas, to create roses that bloomed with the polyantha profusion, but with hybrid tea floral beauty and color range.

The bi-color roses are perhaps the most beautiful of the variations of roses bred today, rangin from a combination of hybrid families bred over the ages. Selected as favourites for flowers arrangements used at large events, weddings, ceremonies, parades because of their vivid colours. One of the most stunning colour combination is the yellow rose with red edges, these roses are commonly known as Circus, Konfetti, Flamenco and Feria roses. They are all very similar, in fact, they are frequently mistaken with each other. Even a trained eye would have difficulty deciphering the differences. Typically, the differences are genetic, making it invisible to the naked eye. The genetic make-up of these different classes of roses are very close to the only method of distinction. Within the classifications of Circus, Konfetti, Flamenco and Feria roses, come several types within its class. There are over 8 types of Circus roses, 3 types of Konfetti roses, 4 types of Flamenco and 3 types of Feria roses, all ranging in colour dissemination of yellow to red edging. Factors affecting the colour distribution can range from environmental factors, nutrition, temperature, exposure, etc. Genetic mutations, known as “sports” can also contribute to the colour distinction of roses.

Here are 4 pictures, identified by professional rose breeders as to their class, all 4 are different and are either Circus, Konfetti, Feria or Flamenco roses, can you tell which one is which?

Hardly, they almost look identical, and their descriptions are virtually identical, however their genetic composition are different. Here are several useful sites, with further information on families and varieties of roses

http://www.sierraflowerfinder.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose

http://www.rose-roses.com/

Answers, from right to left- Feria, Flamenco, Circus, Konfetti

Welcome! My passion is flowers, and I love to spread the word about my passion. I have been asked over time from different sources about flowers. I have written several articles in regards to flowers to which many are published online. Articles about their healing power, wedding flower trends, what’s hot what’s not, their effect on our society, trends, meanings, dangerous/poisonous plants or flowers. Working closely with companies about my knowledge, and giving advice is what I enjoy doing the most.

So I started this blog so that I can share my knowledge and expertise of flowers with all of you. If you have a questions about flowers, post it here and I will answer. I will also post interesting articles that you may find very useful. I encourage you to post remarks, comments or questions so that people can use this as a positive source for gaining information about flowers. Anything YOU want to know? Go ahead ask! Happy reading!!

Mary Marshall