Wedding Ceremony Flowers
The wedding ceremony is a special event, and flowers can be used to express a natural beauty. Choosing the different arrangements and types of flowers is a way to express your creative side. Often them wedding will use flowers to enhance the presentation of the theme such as exotic flowers or tropical foliage for a beach style wedding or all white roses and lilies for a Victorian style wedding. In addition many brides choose to design their own arrangements for both themselves, their bridesmaids as well as for decorations at the church.
Traditional Flowers
Traditional flowers for a wedding ceremony include:
• Red, yellow, pink or white roses
• Chrysanthemums
• Lilies
• Daisy
• Carnations
• Calla lilies
• Orchids
• Freesia
• Baby’s Breath
• Lilly of the Valley
• Heather
• Lavender
These flowers are often used either as cascading, hand-held, arm-held or hand-tied bouquets, centerpieces, arches and swags. There is very often additional greenery or foliage offered to provide texture, additional color, and even from and structure to the arrangement. Boutonnieres are almost exclusively roses or carnations, but there are some wedding themes that use other flowers or dried grasses or seedpods for the mens arrangements.
Not so Traditional
There are also other flowers that are equally as beautiful but not as traditional that are used more and more frequently in wedding arrangements. These flowers are durable, heat and sun tolerant, and can be very easily added to the traditional flowers for a more untraditional look.
These flowers are:
• Ranunculus
• Bird of Paradise
• Celosia
• Dendrobium orchids
• Waxflowers
• Red ginger
• Statice
• Gerbera daisy
• Asters
• Delphinium
More often additional beauty is added with eucalyptus, dried grasses, seedpods and berries and natural greenery.
Costs of different floral decorations
The cost of arranges varies with several factors. Smaller, one or two flower type arrangements that are hand tied or hand-held will start in price at about fifty dollars. The more flowers or decorations that are added the more expensive the bouquet will cost. Most bridal bouquets with traditional flower that are the cascading or large hand held style will be more expensive and will range between two and four hundred dollars.
Boutonnières for the groom and groomsmen, fathers of the bride and groom and ushers will usually range between ten and forty dollars, again depending on the type of flower and the size. Corsages for the mother of the bride and groom are traditionally orchids, and are often priced between thirty and seventy dollars.
Wrist and waist corsages are also popular for younger girls involved in the wedding. Often young girls proceed the wedding party into the church and sprinkle rose petals down the aisle. A small dainty wrist bouquet is priced at approximately fifteen dollars.
In addition pew ends are often decorated with theme type arrangements. For western style weddings dried wheat, grasses and roses are popular. More romantic weddings may have small lace and rose bud decorations. These range in price from twenty dollars to seventy dollars, but can be more depending on the flowers selected. These arrangements can also be used after the church to add decorations to the reception area.
The imaginations of the bride and groom are really all that limit the use of flowers for decorations at any part of the wedding ceremony. Flowers are a wonderful way to make your wedding uniquely yours.
Photo Credits: Sanjoyg