Advice on picking your flowers?

Hello ladies,
Okay so I've already posted twice about how stuck I am on flowers - and I'm still stuck! I keep finding things that are okay, they would work but nothing to which I'm totally dedicated. I'm just having a really hard time with this. Maybe its like kohler and the dress - the more options the harder it is! Plants, flowers and gardening are really important to me so this is bloody hard to do!

How did you all narrow down the options and pick your bouquets, flower colors, arrangements and flower types? How did you decide between colorful bouquets or white bouquets for a bridal bouquet?

this is what I am doing and how I am basing my decisions:

- for my bouquet, I want cymbidium orchids because they are gorgeous and they are the 1st flowers that my FH bought me. Right now, I am thinking green orchids. I don't have my dress yet so I will wait to see which color orchid goes best.

is there any significant, sentimental flowers for you two?

- for the rest of the event: I am asking for a color scheme and then What is LOCAL and SEASONAL; to be environmentally conscious AND to cut costs .

perhaps you can do this too with your florist- ask them to tell you and select from what is in season and what can be locally obtained

- I don't like certain flowers and my groom does not like roses, oddly enough, so I can eliminate some flowers based on these preferences also.


It's like christmas: are you an all white light person or multi color?! : )

Type of flowers - we decided based on season and cost
Color – I want the flowers to accent the dresses and not blend in. So I decided red bouquet for me..the color will pop against my ivory dress and ivory/white bouquet for my girls will go nicely with their deep red dresses.

For the venue – we decided ivory linens and gold sash for the chairs..the red centerpiece will be a nice addition..it won’t be too matchy matchy.

HTH

Hi theDame! Thanks for your advice - my FI gave me tulips because I said that I hated how cliche red roses were for valentines day. Because of things beyond our control we are getting married outside of tulip season which is fine. I do like a number of other flowers but its so hard to settle. I realized that I prefer flowers with textures like peonies (again out of season), garden roses, mums, dahlias etc, ranunculus, lisianthus, etc but I also like calla lillies, hydrangea and carnations... yes not really narrowing it down I know

I once read in some old Victorian flower guide in an antiquarian book store that white flowers were for funerals only, the morbidity freaks me out even though I am very compelled by their simplicity. And I can't for the life of me figure out if it will look alright against a white dress. The florists near the wedding site (destination) are the type that make those arrangements for grocery stores with baby's breath and those horrid little teddy bears hanging onto the sides - not really wedding flowers. So I'm doing this on my own.

The other thing is I prematurely bought lavender moire ribbon and I realize now that not everything goes with lavender...

Haha, I have this problem at Christmas too!

Ms.Sumomo how did you decide on your arrangements? Where did you look for inspiration or was it more of a "hey all flowers are pretty, that works!" sort of thing?

wow Champagne, I didn't realize you were DIY'ing.

In that case: I would look up what the easiest arrangements are to make (martha stewart weddings maybe? or maybe not; her crafts are pretty difficult, I think!) and base my decision on that-
know what I mean? research some easy DIY flowers and then base your decision on what you like and will be EASY to make. That should really narrow it down.

Also, are you sure tulips are seasonal? I didn't think so. I know peonies are seasonal because that was the 2nd flower he gave me and I wanted to include those but decided not too because they are not in season in the summer.

Hi Champagne - So funny you should post this today - I was just thinking about your flowers when I saw today's post on the Bride's Cafe: http://thebridescafe.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/02/post-11.html. For what it's worth, I think the dark callas for the bride's bouquet and lavendar BM's bouquets shown are really beautiful...

i was at a loss re: flowers until i checked out all the flower bouquet photos on PW and the Knot. i've decided that my bouquet will be deep red, pink, and ivory. our wedding is in Hawaii so i'm going with pink plumeria, deep red mini calla lilies, and a few ivory roses.
ive always loved calla's but didnt want white/ivory. the plumeria is the hawaiian flower so i've got to have that, and i decided on the ivory rose because i cant see my FI wearing a pink or red boutonniere.

i think light pink peonies are gorgeous. light pink is sweet and simple, if you want to avoid white, its a great alternative.

Cham – I decided on what type of bouquet I like first and for centerpieces, FI and I like the look for mix flowers…so I went to see my florist with my planner and we discussed on what type flowers. They showed me different flowers and shade of red and ivory/white flowers.

I wanted calla lilies originally but it was too expensive. Since roses has the classic feel we went for roses but not all since it seems too boring if everything is just roses hence the mix flowers centerpieces.

Hey there! well, I just picked two main flowers I really love, roses and orchids. I didn't want bouquets or CP's that have ten different types of flowers. Plus, we have a little bit of a tropical theme going on and the orchids are so pretty. The bouquest will have roses mixed w/ orchids and the bouts will be orchids. FI is wearing a lei and the CP's will have those flowers mixed w/ hydrangeas. I am just trying to keep it simple too.

If you're DIYing it, I would definitely suggest something simple like the stock centerpieces that are in the link that aching put. They're pretty cheap (when I worked at a wholesale florist, it was about 95 cents per stem), they smell sweet, and they have texture to sort of fill out the centerpiece. If you don't want to use your lavender ribbon with your bouquet, maybe you can use it to wrap around the centerpiece vase or something. Carnations work well, too, for being inexpensive and they can take up space.

As for your bouquet, well, for me personally, at first I thought about going with white because it's very bridal. But then I realized that it has the potential to get lost in your dress if you don't accent it with something like green leaves or use flowers that will stand out (ex. calla lily - like the bouquet that's in the link above or Margaret's bouquet was really cute). If you like the lighter look, you could go for ivory or I think the light peach colored flowers you have in your bio would work well, too. Have you also seen misty blue? It's a filler flower that more elegant than baby's breath and comes in white and a blue/purple-ish color.

To fit your color scheme, you could also go with a variety of purple flowers ranging from light to dark. But I'm biased because I like purple. I also really like tropical flowers (FI gave me a lei of purple dendrobium orchids for our first date - I didn't wear it, but I loved the thought of it) and I'm having a tough time with that. They're not that cheap and there's a lot more reds and oranges out there than purple. So to cut costs, I'm thinking about just scattering dendrobium orchids and plumerias and votive candles on the table and stack the favors on a cake platter for a centerpiece. I'm also having my BMs hold fans while walking down the aisle to incorporate my japanese background, which would then leave a little more wiggle room for my bouquet. I'll probably end up using a variety of purple and yellow orchids because those are our colors (although this is the tough time I'm having - not many tropical themes use purple and yellow, I see lots of reds, oranges, greens, and pink instead, I might have to break down and just be multi-colored).

Really though, the flowers you have posted in your bio and the ones you mentioned here can mix well together. Props to you for doing it DIY! I wouldn't handle it well, haha.