Interflora Articles

Button Holes and Bouquets

If you thought that all you needed for your wedding was a few button holes and bouquets, then think again.  

Flowers play a vital part in the ceremony and if you want to stick to the time-honoured conventions of a flower for every participant, and to dress the church, you’re going to need some help with the planning, ordering and delivery. 

You can of course mix it up a little, deciding what flowers are important for you and which ones are a must, and which can be discreetly forgotten. And, of course, you have to think about price, as dressing up everyone and everything with the right flowers, could cost you a packet.

But lets have a quick look at the complete wish list. First comes the wedding party.  

The bride is obviously the most important there and she gets a bridal bouquet, as well as flowers for her hair. She’ll need a bouquet to throw as she leaves the reception and a going-away corsage. 

The older bridesmaids get a bouquet each and possibly hair flowers, and there is an option of getting a different bouquet (more lavish possibly) for the maid of honour. The younger bridesmaids tend to get posies and hair flowers, and can also carry small flower baskets, or baskets with petal confetti. 

The men traditionally only get buttonholes and these go to the groom and the bestman (who might have slightly different, more lavish buttonholes than the other men), and then the others in the party, including ushers, ring-bearer, pageboy, fathers, grandfathers and key groom friends.  

Mothers and grandmothers usually get a corsage, and they usually receive a thankyou bouquet.  

Right, that’s the wedding party kitted out. Now, you have to think about the church and wedding reception.  

The church is the perfect stage for flowers, with arrangements needed for the lych-gate, pew ends, pedestal, pulpit, font, lectern, columns, altar, chancel and window ledges. It doesn’t end there, with the registrar/ceremony table also needing flowers, as well as some of the chairs, or pews. 

The wedding cars require flowers and then its onto the reception venue, with natural contenders being the entrance area, pedestals, staircases, table-centres, top-table, cake table and guest book table. 

That’s an exhaustive list which covers nearly all of the flowers needed at a wedding, but, of course, you can happily choose to select some, and leave out others. 

And once you’ve decided what to have, then it’s a matter of cost. With flowers, as with many things, you need not go for the most expensive stems and arrangements, but mix and match between the premium flowers and budget flowers. 

It can work very much like fashion, with one expensive item of clothing, being supported by cheaper items, but the overall effect is stunning.  

Use the skill of your florist, who will now know to dress arrangements and make the best use of the flowers. 

And when planning your wedding, take care not to clash with seasonal demands such as Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, as you will have no choice then to not only pay top prices, but also risk that certain choices are not available.  

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