Seasonal Wedding Bouquets
/Designing wedding bouquets has become one of my favorite things about being a farmer florist.
Over the years I’ve developed a process that allows me to combine what I know about the person who will hold the bouquet, along with their vision and style for the wedding or elopement, and match all that with what’s in bloom the week of their event. When everything comes together in the days and hours leading up to the event, I often feel like I’m being guided by the season and the flowers.
It’s a very creative and fulfilling process, and I feel lucky to have clients who trust me – and nature – to show up for them. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve been able to harvest just the right blooms in just the right colors at just the right time for an event. Of course there’s a lot of planning involved on my part, but I also place a lot of trust in the garden and the plants to follow their own schedules. And it always seems to work out just right.
Spring
Early in the growing season, I rely on perennials like peonies, geum, spirea, chokecherry, lilac, delphinium, columbine, salvia and other favorites. Color palettes this time of year tend toward light and bright colors. Blue, purple, yellow, pink, coral, peach and soft orange are abundant.
For other color palettes, or for winter or very early spring events, I turn to dried flowers. With dried flowers, I can combine a wider range of colors and blooms, because I harvest flowers to dry throughout the growing season. That means I have more options to choose from when creating a dried bouquet.
In the example below, I used peonies (spring), poppy pods, strawflower, cress, ammobium and statice (summer), and amaranthus, grasses, ferns and peony pods (fall) – all the seasons in one bouquet!
Summer
In the height of the growing season, almost any color combination is possible. The flowers in bloom are typically more saturated and bright, but pastels are an option too. Pink, orange, yellow, blue, white, blush, coral, peach, bronze, plum – there are so many good colors blooming in the gardens.
If the weather is favorable, early summer blooms like ranunculus and sweet peas can be used alongside later bloomers like dahlias and marigolds. Snapdragons in every color are a favorite addition to any bouquet.
As the summer progresses, many plants form seedpods or other interesting textural accents. This time of year, narrowing down my selections is the most difficult part of designing a bouquet.
Fall
From late summer into fall, the colors get a bit richer. Bronze, orange, peach, rust and plum are easy choices, although classics like white and green are beautiful this time of year as well.
Dahlias, lisianthus, zinnias, sunflowers, cosmos, celosia and marigolds are some of the highlights of the season, while grasses, grains and berries add texture and interest. All the foliage is sturdy from a long summer in the sun, and colors begin to shift as the days grow shorter. One plant may produce blooms with a nuanced range of colors, giving me more choices for designing.
In the fall, I love finding uniquely shaped stems or whimsical surprises to add to bouquets. An asparagus frond, a rainbow-colored leaf, golden ferns – these are the final touches that make a seasonal bouquet complete.
Which season or bouquet is your favorite? As you might have noticed, all the seasons are exciting for me. Most of all, I enjoy the changes from one month to another, watching the plants grow and the flowers bloom and fade. Every season brings old favorites and new surprises.