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A beginners guide to bridal bouquets: Styles, flowers and how you should carry it

Sue Barnes of Lavender Green Flowers tries to inject the personality of the bride into their bouquet - Lavender Green Flowers/Lavender Green Flowers
Sue Barnes of Lavender Green Flowers tries to inject the personality of the bride into their bouquet - Lavender Green Flowers/Lavender Green Flowers

A wedding to-do list is one of those beasts which just keeps on growing. Every time you cross something off, a new task miraculously materialises to keep you awake at night.

With dresses, venues, cars, food, readings and entertainment all high on the list it can be easy to neglect one of the most important parts of any wedding day. The flowers.

Don't forget that whatever your theme (festival, urban chic, Star Wars...) your flowers will form the major part of your decoration so should be given a bit of time and thought to ensure they fit the bill. And even more crucial than the table centrepieces and aisle markers is the bridal bouquet.

This particular bunch of flowers will be carried with you for much of the day and will appear in all the photographs, some of which may grace your mantelpiece for the rest of your life. When you think of it that way, suddenly the bridal bouquet seems very important indeed, something that Sue Barnes, Creative Director and Founder of Lavender Green Flowers knows all too well.

After thirty years creating floral designs for up to 100 weddings a year, including those of Pippa Middleton and Louise Roe, she understands what makes the perfect bridal bouquet. "Creating something that’s timeless is really really important," she says. "What is in vogue this year might look ridiculous in 20 years time if you absolutely follow fashion. Wedding bouquets are never going to be the most avant garde or art for art’s sake and nor should they."

Sue Barnes of Lavender Green Flowers tries to inject the personality of the bride into their bouquet - Credit: Lavender Green Flowers/Lavender Green Flowers
Sue Barnes of Lavender Green Flowers tries to inject the personality of the bride into their bouquet Credit: Lavender Green Flowers/Lavender Green Flowers

Barnes' approach is to sketch every bride she works with in their wedding dress along with design ideas and concepts for the bouquet, a process she says keeps her from falling into a rut. "I’m trying to inject the personality of the bride into the bouquet," she confirms. "We look at the dress, see how far out they’ve gone in terms of style and design and then do something that’s just right for that dress."

She will also ask the bride to come up with five words that describe how she would like to feel on her wedding day. Many choose 'romantic', 'elegant' and 'naturally beautiful' but some opt for 'sexy' or 'raunchy', so anything goes. "In the end you get something you understand inside out, back to front," says Barnes. "And the bride knows it's going to feel cohesive."

If you're worried you haven't given your bouquet quite enough of this kind of detailed thought, then fear not. Our guide to bridal bouquets will ensure you won't commit a floral faux pas.

What are the different types of bridal bouquet?

Barnes says there are three main styles of bouquet to consider...

1. Round

A tied bouquet is more informal and naturally beautiful - Credit: Fanton Photography/Fanton Photography / Lavender Green Flowers
A tied bouquet is more informal and naturally beautiful Credit: Fanton Photography/Fanton Photography / Lavender Green Flowers

This is a tied bunch and includes the country style bouquets that are popular with Bohemian style weddings. They tend to be more loose and informal, nothing too rigid or structured. "Something that’s naturally beautiful," says Barnes. "The flowers you’d use are not overly cultivated. You’d use garden roses and seasonal flowers with some foliage in there as well. A tied bunch should take a good florist no more than about 20 minutes to put together and you're looking at anything from £75 to £150."

2. Structured

A structured bouquet is tightly packed with one or two types of flower - Credit: Reportage /Reportage / Lavender Green Flowers
A structured bouquet is tightly packed with one or two types of flower Credit: Reportage /Reportage / Lavender Green Flowers

This look is also a tied bunch but is much more structured. "It might be packed full of one or two types of flower," describes Barnes. "It generally doesn’t have any foliage in it and is more of a contemporary statement, a more modern look; beautiful but not naturally beautiful."

Due to the fact this style uses a lot of flowers it tends to take longer to create and is therefore more expensive. You could expect to spend between £95 and £175. 

3. Wired

Fashion blogger Louise Roe chose a wired bouquet from Lavender Green Flowers - Credit: Fanton Photography/Fanton Photography / Lavender Green Flowers
Fashion blogger Louise Roe chose a wired bouquet from Lavender Green Flowers Credit: Fanton Photography/Fanton Photography / Lavender Green Flowers

According to Barnes a wired bouquet will take a florist a minimum of two and a half hours to make and is extremely flower heavy, both of which put the cost up to between £200 and £250.

"This is a bouquet that can be any shape," she explains. "It’s wired because every flower needs to put in a specific position to create a shape other than a round one. So something like a teardrop for example. It’s when people want something different, something tiny, something very light to carry. You basically chop all the stems off and replace them with a wire and push it back together again."

What are the rules for choosing a bridal bouquet?

Keep the following in mind and you'll have a bouquet you'll be happy to look back on for the next thirty years.

1. Size matters

If you're petite, avoid a long trailing bouquet which will overpower you. "They emphasise the lack of height more than anything and you often find the bride is drowning behind them," says Barnes. "Gone are the days when people carried a virtual garden in front of them. These days it’s more about the bouquet being an accessory rather than a massive statement in itself."

2. Work your waist

"If you carry your bouquet in front of your waist you still want to be able to see a part of your waist on each side otherwise you'll just look like a column," says Barnes. She advises sticking to a smaller bouquet to ensure your figure and dress can be seen.

3. Practice carrying your bouquet

With nerves and excitement all playing a role on your wedding day it's a good idea to practice how you'll carry your bouquet. "When you're nervous, your shoulders go up around your ears, you bring your bouquet up to protect your heart so you lose your waist," explains Barnes. "You have this scrunched up, very nervous look, so we always teach brides how to carry the the bouquet as low as possible."

She advises carrying it below the waist and says to lock your elbows. Concentrating on doing this means your shoulders can't go up at the same time, so you'll retain a relaxed, languid look.

Avoid oversized blooms and ensure each side of your waist is still visible - Credit: Pippa Mackenzie/Bridebook
Avoid oversized blooms and ensure each side of your waist is still visible Credit: Pippa Mackenzie/Bridebook

4. Avoid oversized blooms

You can have almost any flowers you like in your bouquet (it is your big day after all) but Barnes recommends not choosing anything too big and remembering to "dress the dress". 

"There’s nothing worse than having these great big bouquets that are not artistic, that just don’t say anything," she adds. "That Great Big Gypsy Wedding look is gone, it’s finished. A good way of thinking about it is if the dress were the best evening gown you had ever purchased, what handbag would you use? You wouldn’t use a big shoulder bag, you wouldn’t go out with a tote. You’d use a small, exquisite clutch bag. The bouquet should be viewed in the same way. It’s an accessory for something you’ve spent forever choosing."

5. Consider fragrance

It goes without saying that you want your bridal bouquet to look beautiful but shouldn't it smell beautiful too? Use the natural fragrance of your flowers to really hit your senses as well as those of your guests. Not only will it be wonderful on the day itself, but when you're surrounded by that scent again in the future, incredible memories will come flooding back. "Fragrance is a massive part of it for me," agrees Barnes. "The fragrance of Lily of the Valley and Jasmine just stay with you forever and it allows you to fragrance the whole of your wedding. A wedding bouquet should always be fragrant."

6. Let your venue inform, but not dictate your bouquet

Your choice of dress will govern your choice of bouquet to a large extent, but if you've styled a Bohemian wedding in the countryside, then keep it in mind when picking your flowers. A floaty dress and festival theme will inspire a tied bunch of wild flowers. Anything rigid just doesn't belong. 

Conversely if you're getting married in a city-scape you wouldn't normally bring a 'just picked' look to proceedings. But Barnes says you don't have to be dictated to by your venue.  "Everyone’s different," she says. "We can create a secret summer garden in the middle of the city and give the feel of a country bride even if they’re in a hard landscape."

Barnes suggests finding inspiration from bridal magazines - Credit: Tanya Joy/Lavender Green Flowers
Barnes suggests finding inspiration from bridal magazines Credit: Tanya Joy/Lavender Green Flowers

How soon should I find a florist?

If you're the kind of bride who adores flowers and already has a sense of what you want, then approach your preferred florist as soon as you can to make sure they can accommodate your wedding in their diary. This could be as much as 18 months before the big day.

And while Barnes says it is more usual for her team to be booked between a year and six months before a wedding, in recent years they've taken on more and more jobs with only a six or even three week lead time. "There are lots and lots of last minute weddings and it’s not because they don’t care about the floral side of it," she explains. "It’s because people are more relaxed about smaller weddings and they have the ability to get married just about anywhere, at the drop of a hat. The shortest amount of time we’ve ever designed a whole wedding was seven days. That’s the very, very minimum. It can be done."

Where can I find design inspiration?

As well as the obvious places like Instagram and Pinterest, Barnes suggests flicking through some high end bridal magazines. Cut out pictures of bouquets and styles you like and while you're unlikely to find the exact style with the exact colours and flowers you have in mind, you will be able to narrow all those things down, which will be helpful when you come to discuss them with your florist.

And if that's not working for you then Barnes has another suggestion. "If you can’t find things you really love, find things you absolutely hate," she says. "It’s a good way of starting when someone can come in and say, 'I really don’t want it to look like this'. At least as a florist, you know that some of the avenues you might have suggested are cancelled out."