Despite the seemingly endless ranges of hue and texture that Mother Nature makes available in fresh flowers, sometimes you can’t find just the right shade of blossom that you have in your head for your wedding flowers. Maybe your wedding falls in the wrong season for your perfect flower. Maybe your dream color scheme needs something just a little outside what exists in nature. Then what?
I recently was thrilled to be invited to my cousin (ok, maybe a few [hundred] times removed!) Julie’s wedding in Northern Ireland. I was in! The trip and the wedding was amazing (a story for another blog), but I was looking forward to seeing how wedding flowers are used “across the pond”.
Julie had found a stunningly rich, deep, teal dress for her bridesmaids – just perfect for an early September ceremony, right on the cusp of fall. So elegant, when paired with ivory flower girls’ dresses and handsome black tuxes. The simplicity of the single accent color would have been offset by introducing other colors into the mix. But there’s no such color in the flower world, and she came up with a great solution: silk flower accents.
Julie combined white mini calla lilies, white gerbera daisies (with a black center) and some lush green ruscus with a touch of deep teal silk flower to pull it all together. The result was just beautiful; all the splendor of fresh flowers, and just that little pop of drama from the silks. It was a great alternative to trying to dye flowers to be “just right,” but still having the lushness of fresh flowers on her special day.
Julie’s Wedding Party
Julie’s Wedding Bouquet
Lovely Flowergirls Lisa and Emma
Joan Wyndrum
Joan is one of the founding partners of BloomsByTheBox.com. She holds degrees in both commercial design and business administration/marketing. One of her earliest jobs was in the retail flower business. For the past 30 years she has consulted a wide variety of clients - many in the wholesale florist industry - in marketing, design, and business operations. In 2007, she and partner Larry Fox joined forces to combine their talents and knowledge to create BloomsByTheBox.com to bring the beauty of the growers' fields directly to customers' doors. Joan is frequently asked to contribute to popular publications to discuss all aspects of the flower and floral design, including The Knot, Zola, SheFinds, What To Expect, AP News, and Sunset among others.
This is a brilliant post and has given me inspiration for my own wedding flowers. I am also having teal as my main colour and trying to find flowers to go with it was proving difficult. I was a little worried about going down the silk flower route but these pictures show that there is nothing to worry about and they look just as good as the real flowers. All I have to do now is try and find some nice silk teal flowers – do you know where your cousin got hers from? Do you know what she had for her center pieces as I am also struggling with this – do you have any pictures of the center pieces that you could send me.