Finding Inspiration for your Wedding Flowers

22nd October 2019

One of the most aesthetically pleasing aspects of wedding planning is deciding on the flowers & foliage for your big day. However, it’s not all pretty petals and gorgeous scents – there’s a lot of logistics involved too! Amazing Space Weddings have put together our thoughts below on finding your bloomin’ beautiful wedding flowers.

First things first, you want to keep a timescale in mind. You may wish to take your time leisurely looking for inspiration, and you should! It's a big part of the fun – but it’s good to keep in mind that most couples book their flowers at least 6 months before their wedding, so you want to allow plenty of time for browsing and falling down Pinterest rabbit holes. If you’re lucky enough to have your wedding booked for a very popular month (typically June, July, August & September), you may need to pre-book your florist up to 12 months in advance, just to make sure your first choices will be available. 

Start the Conversation

We’d recommend sitting down with your partner and talking about what kind of flowers you like. Maybe draw reference from flowers you’ve given each other for special days in your relationship, or any flowers which are particularly sentimental or meaningful. What were the first flowers you ever gave each other, what flowers did your parents have at their weddings, or what is your favourite flower in the garden?

It’s worth considering: are you a classic roses kind of couple? More of a wildflowers couple? Maybe you want to go all green with hanging plants? Are bold colours your thing or would you rather stay simple? Peonies are an incredibly popular wedding flower, maybe you also love them, or maybe you’d like to try something a little different. You want to find something you both love, because this is for your special day!

Make a Moodboard

Hopefully after discussing some ideas and inspiration for your wedding flowers, you will both have more of a specific idea of what you’re looking for. Now you have a great opportunity to start visualising the flowers for your big day, it's time to hop online, get lost in Pinterest and find some inspiration!

We have a lovely 'Flower Power Wedding' moodboard here for you to enjoy.

Some great hashtags for wedding blooms to check out and follow on Instagram are:

If you’re more of a ‘hands on’ couple, you could take a trip together to your local florist or flower market, to chat to the florists and stall owners about their blooms. If you’re in London, Columbia Road Flower Market or New Covent Garden Market are fantastic for seasonal flowers at a great price. If you pop back a few times throughout the year, you’ll start to recognise which blooms are in season and get a better idea of what kind of flowers you both love.

Consider Your Colour Scheme & Theme

Consider all the possible colour options for your blooms – do you want them to perfectly match the bridesmaid’s dresses and your décor, or would you prefer more complimentary colours? You don’t want everything the same tone, so you could play around with variations on your chosen palette, selecting tones which are a little lighter or darker than your chosen colour scheme, and accenting your key colours.

You could also use your Bridal Bouquet to inspire your other flowers. It’s very important that this bouquet looks beautiful with your dress! You don’t want this bouquet to distract from you, or to blend in with your dress either. The style of your dress and bouquet should complement each other.

Think About Your Venue

The size and scale of your wedding venue (for both your ceremony & reception) are super important when considering the size and scale of the flowers you should book. Large flower arrangements will look amazing in a huge chapel or palace, but these would be overwhelming in a smaller venue. Make sure you take lots and lots of photos when you visit your venue, so you can mentally plan where you’d like your flowers to go.

Registry offices do let you bring in your own decorations, but you don’t have long to arrange your flowers, so your blooms can’t be too complicated to put in place.

If you do choose to hire a florist for your wedding, your venue is a key point to discuss with them. We go in to this in much more detail over on our blog Budgeting for your Wedding Blooms. 

The Reason for the Season

It's always best to choose seasonal blooms for your wedding, as they will look happier on the day of your wedding, along with being easier to find, and can also be cheaper as they’re more readily available. Everyone loves a peony (and we can see why!), but they’re only in season in the UK from mid-May to the beginning of July. If you've got your heart set on a certain flower which may not be in season on your wedding dates, you could always consider flower lookalikes. 

Some cheeky little flower lookalikes are...

And Finally... Follow Your Nose!

Along with focusing on the aesthetics of your flowers, you also need to think about how they smell! You may love the look of lilies, but do you want to be smelling them all day?

If you know that you, your fiancé or any of your special guests have any allergies to certain blooms, or your hay fever is particularly triggered by a certain flower, definitely avoid it. You don't want to have watery eyes or a red nose in all your wedding photos!

Now after considering the ideas above, you'll hopefully have a better idea of what flowers you’d like to have at your wedding. Your next step is to think about how you can put your flowery ideas in to practice. You should keep your absolute ideal plan for flowers in mind, and then think realistically about how could you make this work with your budget. We've put together another blog on budgeting and whether to hire a florist, along with flowery logistics on the big day. You can read it here: Budgeting for your Wedding Blooms. Enjoy!