Popular Wedding Flowers
Popular Wedding flowers? If you could picture yourself walking through a glorious garden with every flower at it's peak, which flower would you pick for your wedding? The common place or the colorful? Perhaps the rarest or most fragrant?
Having trouble deciding from the thousands of varieties available? To help you narrow down your bouquet and centerpiece choices before you meet with your florist, we offer this overview of the top 10 most popular wedding flowers.
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1. Roses
Long considered a symbol of beauty and love, the rose figures into many myths and fairy tales. Romantic writers and poets have used the rose as a metaphor for emotion, beauty, passion, and true love throughout the ages.
The rose is far from boring, particularly when it comes to color, as the rose is available in solid colors and bicolor varieties.
There are striped roses and tipped roses as well. More than three thousand varieties of roses are grown commercially, with many being available all year-round.
Though roses are associated with luxurious fragrance, not every rose is scented.
There are three main types which are likely candidates for your wedding flowers:
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Hybrid Tea Roses - the classic, uniformly-shaped commercial roses generally seen at your local florist.
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Spray Roses - a rose with five to 10 small heads on each stem and a "natural, garden-grown" look.
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Garden Roses - expensive, old-fashioned varieties with bushy, open heads and delicious scents.
2. Tulips
Although it's most often associated with the Netherlands, this flower is actually a native of Persia. The Tulip represents "consuming love" and "happy years," . Tulips can be a meaningful wedding choice.
Tulips are grown in a wide range of colors: white and cream; pastels like pink, yellow, and peach; and vibrant hues like magenta, red, and purple. They are available during much of the year and the most common tulips are very affordable, though rare varieties can be expensive.
The versatile tulip can enhance both elegant wedding settings and more casual venues. Three main varieties are commonly used:
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Dutch tulips - typically seen at neighborhood florist shops and in gardens
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French tulips - expensive and elegant, with extra-long stems and large tapered blooms
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Parrot tulips - noted for their ruffled, striped petals in intense colors
3. Calla Lilies
Also known as the arum lily, this elegant, trumpet-shaped blossom originated in Africa and symbolizes "magnificent beauty" in the language of flowers.
The calla lily's distinctive form has been depicted in Art Nouveau and Art Deco works, in addition to twentieth-century photography. Two types are commonly available:
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A large-headed variety with a long, smooth stem and suitable for tall arrangements or presentation-style bouquets
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A miniature version ideal for nosegays and boutonnieres. Creamy ivory is the most popular color, but calla lilies also come in yellow, orange, mauve-pink, and dark purple.
4. Lily Of The Valley
With bell-shape florets dangling from a thin stem, the lily of the valley is sometimes called "the ladder to heaven." The fresh, perfumed scent from it's tiny flowers is unmistakable.
In Norse mythology, the flower is linked to Ostara, the goddess of springtime, and while most plentiful during this season, it remains available most of the year. However it is a very expensive flower. So while a fistful of lily of the valley might be your dream, a more affordable alternative may be to use just a few stems to infuse a bouquet or centerpiece with it's wonderful fragrance. Most people know of the white variety, but lily of the valley also comes in a very rare rosy-pink as well.
5. Hydrangeas
With its big bushy head and intense shades of pink, blue, burgundy, and purple, it's no wonder that the hydrangea represented "vanity" in the Victorian language of flowers. One of the most popular varieties changes in color as it grows from bubble-gum pink to sky blue, depending on the acid level of the soil.
A stem or two of this moderately priced, scentless shrub flower helps fill out arrangements and bouquets, and a few sprigs make a charming boutonniere. You'll find the hydrangea in white and shades of green, pink, burgundy, and blue.
Top 10 Flowers Continued |
