Photo: Centric Photography
The ladies at Rook & Rose Floral Design, in British Columbia, Canada, designed this lovely rose-based bouquet, ideal for a casual country or English garden wedding. Along with blush roses, they used lisianthus, phalaenopsis orchids, hydrangeas, astilbes, the herb bupleurum, and just a few ostrich feathers. Lead designer Erica Smolders describes the palette as "romantic neutrals." For the layman, that's vintage white, crisp white, taupe, champagne, caramel, and fresh spring green with hints of blush. We love how simple and feminine this is. (Approximate cost, $150)
—Denise Penny Shepard
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Photo: Lindsey Thorne Photography
Mary Kathryn Paynter, the stylist behind Loretta Flower in Austin, Texas, created this vivid bridesmaids' posy for a bride getting married at Laguna Gloria, a historic home that sits on Lake Austin. "Her wedding was very formal, but the color palette was inspired by monarch butterflies, so it was still playful." This slightly wild but still sophisticated look (achieved here with peonies, cockscombs, ranunculus, amaranths, seeded eucalyptus, and spray roses) is representative of what brides are into now—bouquets that aren't too uniform, tight, or predictable. "It's a sign of the flood of creativity that has overtaken the wedding industry since the dawn of the blogosphere," explains Paynter. (Approximate cost, $100)
—Denise Penny Shepard
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Photo: Austin Gros Photography
This free-form bouquet was created by the folks at Nashville-based event-design company Cedarwood Weddings. (FYI: They have a fab barn on a 50-acre nature preserve, for those of you in the area.) What makes this a modern bouquet? For starters, the fact that they've blended what are considered to be more exotic flowers like mokara orchids with garden-variety flowers like zinnias and herbs, and that they've incorporated so many different blooms in a single arrangement. The 10 flowers used here (cream stock, wine dahlias, tulips, mokara orchids, freesia, ranunculus, roses, spray roses, zinnias, and craspedia) are in season in late summer. (Approximate cost, $175)
—Denise Penny Shepard
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Photo: Genevieve Leiper Photography
Tying the knot outside? Consider a textural arrangement that complements your outdoor surroundings. Holly Chapple of Virginia-based Holly Heider Chapple Flowers designed this bouquet for a bride getting married on a vineyard and celebrating in a barn. "The entire wedding had an organic aesthetic. The bride's palette was muted pinks and dusty lavender tones," says Chapple. We love the from-nature look here, achieved by surrounding extra-large café au lait dahlias with cabbage, amnesia and quicksand roses, field flowers, silver-sage foliage, and lavender. (Approximate cost, $300)
—Denise Penny Shepard
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Photo: Eleise Theuer Photography
"These wedding flowers [cockscombs, zinnias, hyacinth beans, old-fashioned garden roses, honeysuckle, pieris, vitex, and phlox] were picked the morning of the wedding to preserve their fresh fragrance and form," explains Hannah Warfield of North Carolina-based Flora Verdi, a supporter of the local-seasonal-and-sustainable phenomenon. "This is a late-summer arrangement, echoing the warm tones of the season: peach, orange, cream, and rust-kissed greens. It's ideal for a wedding taking place in a romantic garden with an antiqued look," says Warfield. (Approximate cost, $150)
—Denise Penny Shepard
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Photo: Our Labor of Love
"Our bride asked for wild, rustic, bohemian bouquet that's earthy, and not perfect or stuffy, and I hope we nailed it," says Ellen Frost, owner of Maryland-based Local Color Flowers. Frost specializes in locally grown cut wedding flowers sourced from within 100 miles of Baltimore. "Sourcing locally is a great alternative to using flowers that are shipped from places like Colombia, Ecuador, and Kenya," explains Frost. "Right now, 80 percent of the flowers sold in the U.S. come from thousands of miles away, outside the country." To achieve this ecoconscious, fresh-from-the-garden look, Frost used peonies, snapdragons, astilbes, yarrow, and lisianthus and paired them with dusty millers, oregano, rosemary, and mountain mint. (Approximate cost, $150)
—Denise Penny Shepard
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Photo: Birds of a Feather
We love this super-bright contemporary bouquet by the ladies at California-based event-design company Bash, Please. "The bride for whom we designed it absolutely loved poppies, so we chose florals and greenery to accent their vibrant colors," explain designers Kelly Harris and Paige Appel. The balance of intense citrus hues with elegant whites and greens—here, achieved using anemones, veronicas, dusty millers, solidasters, and ranunculus—work equally well in a rustic outdoor setting or an indoor, urban environment. (Approximate cost, $225)
—Denise Penny Shepard
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Photo: June Lion Photography
When you're looking for a clever way to cut flower costs, florists will always tell you that bridesmaids can carry single-bloom bouquets. What does that mean exactly, and, more important, what does that look like? Here's an example of one done well. Choose a large flower with graphic appeal—in this case, the heat-resistant protea—and tie a ribbon loosely around the stem. If one looks too spare, go with a couple tied together, like this bride did for her wedding. Proteas come in orange and gray, too, and are available year-round, and the flower head can grow to be almost 10 inches wide, making it ideal for this bouquet style.
—Denise Penny Shepard
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Photo: Whitney Furst Photography
Brides all over the country are turning to cotton for the white element in their bridal bouquets. "I love working with cotton for its soft texture," says Faye Zierer Krause, who uses it in many of her arrangements for her Etsy store. "Its large head size makes it a good value, and it won't wilt. Cotton is versatile; it works equally well for an outdoor summer wedding or a winter wedding taking place indoors." For this super-long-lasting, rustic-chic posy, she used dried yellow craspedias, cotton, tallow berries, phalaris grass, wheat, and sola-wood roses and finished it with a mesh collar and a cotton ribbon wrap.
—Denise Penny Shepard
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Photo: Isabel Parra
For a fun, free-spirited outdoor reception where dinner and dancing are done barefoot beneath the stars, go for this look, says Taylor Patterson of the NYC-based flower-and-style purveyor Fox Fodder Farm. Patterson sewed dahlias, flowering dusty millers, scabiosas, and wild grass into this veil. "They won't fall off," she says. "I'd do this if I were getting married somewhere with a breathtaking natural setting, like Big Sur in northern California. And this particular look works well if your palette is a mix of desert tones."
—Denise Penny Shepard
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Wedding Dresses Inspired by Downton Abbey's Lady Mary
Photo: Amelia Johnson Photography
Peonies are elegant; craspedias are quirky—but that doesn't mean they can't look great together. For this bouquet, Holly Heider Chapple mixed pink peonies and lavender with pale yellow stock, yellow ranunculus, and yellow crespedia. The look's natural and romantic, and perfect if your color palette is buttercream yellow and blush, with pops of purple.
—Denise Penny Shepard
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- Keywords:
- Beach,
- Casual,
- Outdoor,
- Romantic,
- Rustic,
- Spring,
- Vineyard,
- Wedding Flowers,
- Whimiscal,
- White,
- Yellow
Photo: Michael and Anna Costa Photography
"Textural," is what botanical stylist Lauryl Lane was going for when she created this rustic-romantic bouquet for a bride getting married outdoors at The Ojai Valley Inn and Spa. The best part about this arrangement? It's personalized. Placed among the roses, freesia, astilbe, scabiosa pods, and dusty miller are paper flowers. "The bride is a stationer, so we incorporated her love of paper goods into her bouquet," explains Lane.
—Denise Penny Shepard
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- Keywords:
- Casual,
- DIY,
- Green,
- Handmade,
- Pink,
- Romantic,
- Rustic,
- Spring,
- Vineyard,
- Wedding Flowers,
- Whimsical,
- White
Photo: Our Labor of Love
When choosing wedding flowers and conceptualizing centerpieces, you can draw inspiration from anywhere—anywhere at all! Case in point: This arrangement was inspired by a couple's watermelon-flavored signature cocktail. "We referenced their palette of watermelon, antique peach, orange, deep burgundy, and vintage pink," explains Jenah Barry of Xylem & Phloem. "The eclectic aesthetic complemented the raw opulence of their venue, the Metropolitan Building in Long Island City, New York. Also, we used only locally-grown specialty blooms from the Hudson River Valley." This centerpiece was designed to look natural and celebratory and incorporates dahlias, zinnias, snapdragons, wheat celosias, chamomile flowers, and ruby silk grass—all of which were in season for this couple's September wedding.
—Denise Penny Shepard
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Unique Wedding Boutonnieres
Photo: Megan Pomeroy
This is perfect for a romantic wedding in a garden," says Juliet Totten of Poppies & Posies, who created this fresh, feminine bouquet for a wedding at a private residence, using different varieties of garden roses, andromedas, and tree peonies—all sourced from the bride's mother's garden, no less! The result was a gorgeous, loose composition of blooms in ballerina colors. The bouquet's organic shape makes it feel slightly informal and distinctly modern, though Totten maintains it would do beautifully at a traditional black-tie affair, too.
—Denise Penny Shepard
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- Keywords:
- Bohemian,
- Garden,
- Green,
- Outdoor,
- Outdoor Weddings,
- Pink,
- Romantic,
- Spring,
- Vintage,
- Wedding Flowers,
- White
Photo: Gia Canali Photography
Here's a smart way to trim the costs of your escort-card presentation and your centerpiece budget in one fell swoop. For a September wedding at Beltane Ranch in Glen Ellen, California, this bride attached escort cards to bud vases that each held a single dainty bloom, so when guests took them to their tables, the vases could also serve as decor. "This look made sense for our intimate, whimsical celebration, which took place in farm country," explains the bride, who chose cheery red and pink dahlias, daisies, and bright yellow craspedias. "The bud vases were from my florist, who sourced them at Cultural Intrigue, and our cards were from San Fran stationer Hello! Lucky. At the end of the night, guests could take them home as favors if they felt like it," she says.
—Denise Penny Shepard
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Brides' 30 Best Wedding Bouquets of 2012
- Keywords:
- Bohemian,
- DIY,
- Garden,
- Outdoor,
- Outdoor Weddings,
- Red,
- Romantic,
- Rustic,
- Spring,
- Summer,
- Wedding Flowers,
- White
