Si­mone Sant-Ghu­ran

Flow­ers pro­vide colour, fra­grance and add a won­der­ful touch of na­ture to wed­dings. The use of flow­ers can be sub­tle, such as in a hair or­na­ment or it can be dra­mat­ic with sculp­tur­al cen­tre­pieces on re­cep­tion ta­bles. Brides can opt for flow­ers which are sim­i­lar in tone to their wed­ding colour scheme or can choose com­plete­ly con­trast­ing blooms. You could al­so start with the colour of the brides­maids' dress­es and choose co-or­di­nat­ing hues for flow­ers. An­oth­er strik­ing op­tion is to go with on­ly one type of flower through­out the cer­e­mo­ny and re­cep­tion. When de­cid­ing on the type of flow­ers to be used, re­mem­ber that much like the bride's at­tire, the choice of flow­ers can be tra­di­tion­al, con­tem­po­rary, for­mal or ca­su­al. The style gen­er­al­ly de­pends on the cou­ple's taste, bud­get, wed­ding theme, colour scheme, re­cep­tion lo­ca­tion and d&ea­cute;cor.

How much will flow­ers cost? The cost of flow­ers de­pends on the vol­ume, sea­son­al­i­ty and types of flow­ers used. Gen­er­al­ly, flow­ers will con­sume about 10 per cent of your wed­ding bud­get. Re­gion­al flow­ers like an­thuri­ums, or­chids and gin­ger lilies to name a few, tend to be cheap­er and last longer than pop­u­lar, for­eign ones like ros­es and lilies. You should al­so find out if the florist/flo­ral de­sign­er hand-ties and wires each bloom to a bou­quet, or sim­ply places them in­to a bou­quet hold­er. This of­ten has a dif­fer­ence in cost.

Tips on choos­ing flow­ers for your bridal bou­quet:

• To en­sure that your flow­ers co-or­di­nate with your dress, take along a swatch of the fab­ric from your dress or a pho­to of it, when you first meet with your florist.

• The size and style of the bride's bou­quet de­pends on the bride's per­son­al style, the de­sign of her dress, the de­gree of for­mal­i­ty of the wed­ding and the phys­i­cal size of the bride her­self (it would cer­tain­ly look out of pro­por­tion to have a pe­tite bride car­ry­ing a very large bou­quet).

• Bridal bou­quets can be done in many dif­fer­ent styles: cas­cade, spray bou­quet, arm bou­quet, hand tied bou­quet or no bou­quet at all-just a sin­gle flower.

• Tra­di­tion­al­ly, the bridal bou­quet is dif­fer­ent but com­ple­men­tary to the brides­maids' bou­quets.

Trends for wed­dings:

• Trendi­er bou­quets tend to have fab­ric rib­bon, strands of pearls, lace, feath­ers/plumes, dec­o­ra­tive pins or brooches to ac­ces­sorise them.

• Cen­tre­pieces in mod­ern, min­i­mal­ist con­tain­ers and the use of suc­cu­lents/cac­ti, green­ery or branch­es alone, in­stead of flow­ers.

• Each brides­maid car­ry­ing a dif­fer­ent, bright­ly-coloured bou­quet (cit­rus colours and pinks have be­come very pop­u­lar).

• Flower girls hold­ing po­man­ders (a ball of flow­ers on a rib­bon) in­stead of throw­ing petals.