Everything You Need to Know About Wedding Flowers

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

Grid View

Expand

• [Photos: Tori Telfer]
• What trends are you seeing lately in bridal bouquets? A lot of people are putting family heirlooms into their bouquets, like pendants or jewelry—it's popular to weave them into the bouquet. Right now, it's spring, so eve
• Which flowers are on the cheaper end of the spectrum? I would say mini green hydrangeas, bupleurum, and Queen Anne's Lace What about rarer flowers? Probably banksia, or Mini King Proteas, or Queen Proteas. There are
• So flowers are very international now? Absolutely. Most of the product you see in a flower shop is grown in Colombia, South America, Europe. It's harder to find regional flowers in the wintertime, but there's always something going on be
• Have you noticed any color trends in wedding florals? Obviously, you see a lot of whites. Pink has probably been the predominant color for as long as I've been doing wedding flowers. Pink, or green and white bouquets. In the fall we get
• Have you ever done a particularly unusual bouquet? I've done bouquets with pincushion proteas—which is really fun to do—and mixed them in with callas. We like to do a lot of texture here; we like to use a lot of greenery. Sometimes we ti
• What else would a wedding party order from a florist? We'll do table settings, centerpieces, and altarpieces as well as the bouquet, boutonnieres, and corsages. We can always put petals and flowers on the wedding cake, too
• And finally, what's your favorite type of bridal bouquet? I like a loose, garden-y bouquet that's very unstructured and a little bit asymmetrical. My bouquets tend to be a little wonkier and less formal than what you'd see in a Top 10 br

I've always suspected that being a florist is the loveliest job ever, and when I interviewed Paul Munro, the wedding specialist for Marguerite Gardens, his relaxed demeanor, coupled with the loving way he dropped flower names like bupleurum and Mini King Protea, confirmed my long-held suspicions. Forget yoga, forget meditation: get thee to a floral shop.

I dropped by Marguerite Gardens one sunny afternoon, where I watched Paul wander through the store, instinctively pulling together a cream-and dusty purple-hued beauty of a bouquet featuring lyrical flowers like Amnesia roses, black Queen Anne's Lace, Dusty Miller, scabiosa, hybrid delphinium, mokara orchids, and a ruffly blush-colored flower called simply "stock." Let's just say it was impossible to take a bad picture of the end result. There are plenty of things to be stressed about as a bride, but the lovely world of florals should not be one of them.
·
· All Weddings Week 2014 posts [Racked Chicago]