Planning your bridal bouquet

Visualizing your perfect bridal bouquet can sometimes be a process. Because the bouquet acts as an accessory to your dress, it’s important for your floral designer to not only see your dress, but to fully understand the style, colors, and scale of the flowers you want to be holding. Ideally, we would love to see an image of you in your dress during a fitting as well as any hair accessories, shoes or jewelry you may be wearing.

Having a visual of these details can play into what type of fabric goes around the bouquet handle and influence the pop of color added to the bouquet. You also may want to consider incorporating a family memento to attach to the bouquet handle, such as your grandmother’s brooch, your father’s heirloom pocket watch or the handkerchief your mother carried on her wedding day. These unique touches not only make your bouquet all your own, but honor the family member who passed them down to you. In addition, they might count as your “something borrowed” or perhaps “something blue.”

One very clear way of communicating the type of bridal bouquet you are looking for is to collect images of flowers that you love. I find that when a bride sends me three to five images of bouquets, there are themes that give me an idea of exactly what she is looking for. If you put several bouquet images on the same page, you will notice the similarities. Maybe they all have a lot of texture, or they are only use two to three types of flowers, or the flowers are all fluffy blooms. These images will help your floral designer understand what your personal combination of flowers may be.

Once we have sorted out which flowers you want in your bouquet, we begin to think about which flowers or colors you want to see the most of. Some brides want all bright colors and some want all soft whites and creams, with touches or pops of color. I have often found the design and colors will change from a little to a lot leading up to the big day. This is perfectly normal and not a problem. It’s common that when a bride is planning her flowers six months or a year in advance, things change! Maybe your bridesmaids dresses started out as a bright pink and now have become a dusty pink. Maybe your shoes were champagne and now they are bright red. These details will change some of the colors in your flower design. Not to worry; just keep your florist aware of these important changes so we can always stay on the same page!

See tips from our other professionals at our Brooklyn Betrothed site!

Pretty in pink summer wedding flowers.

I met this couple just a few weeks before their August 5th wedding in NYC. They were very excited to bring in some local Brooklyn people to collaborate on their wedding. The bride was so sweet and had no shame admitting that pink is her very very favorite color! The style we went for was sort of a mash of shappy chic meets the Hamptons. We used garden roses, jasmine, stephanotis, orchids, hydrangea, calla, tulips, and white and pink gomphrena and more.

Summer hurricane wedding in Brooklyn!

As many of you New Yorkers know, we recently had a very strange series of weather related challenges. A couple weeks ago we had a very serious hurricane closing in on the NY area and it was eminent that it would affect Brooklyn. I had two weddings this weekend. One on Friday and one on Saturday. In the middle of transporting Friday's wedding to the Foundry in L.I.C., I get an email from my brave bride from Saturday asking to see how many of her guests would be able to make the switch a DAY earlier to avoid this crazy hurricane. I instantly had a pang of sadness knowing that if she did switch her wedding date to that day, there was no way I could deliver her flowers, and set up her ceremony decor since I was already working a wedding. I emailed her right away and let her know that if she did switch the date, I would not be able to provide any of her flowers. She emailed me back saying that she completely understood. The whole time I was setting up the Foundry, I couldn't stop thinking about how disappointing it was for all of us that she wouldn't be able to get her flowers, which were all in buckets, sprayed, and hand picked for her. We decided to see what could be done in the nick of time. This is when the FUN began! It was a huge challenge and a huge rush to get this bride at the very least a bridal bouquet and boutonniere in her hands. We rushed home around 5pm. I scarfed a slice or two of pizza and high tailed it to my studio to put together the fastest bridal bouquet I have ever put together in my life. Her ceremony was at 7:30pm. I left my studio at 6:50pm, running to my car with a bouquet in hands and boutonniere in my teeth as I was scrambling for my keys. People literally stopped my in the street and were like "omg! what a pretty bouquet" I of course shared the story with a perfect stranger about the hurricane and date switcher-oo ect. I get behind the wheel and become a typical NYer. Keeping bumper to bumper, inching over every ground I could cover as fast as possible with one hand on the bouquet in the passenger seat. I amazingly get a parking spot right away near reBar, jump out of the car and up to the venue. It's now 7:18pm. I ask around for the bride and they tell my she is back in the bridal suit getting final hair and make up done. I go down the hall checking a bunch of doors and finally come to what I know the the bridal suit. I walk all the way back, peak just my head into the suit so she see's my face (holding the bouquet behind my back) she looks at my totally confused and was like "Rebecca!, what are you doing here?!" I push out my hand with a big, super duper freshly made bridal bouquet and she freaks out! I couldn't believe I made it in time!!! We hugged and both got teary along with her mom who was also very appreciative. Alas.... the bride has her bouquet JUST in time for her ceremony. This was the most rewarding moment I have had in a very long time. I always say... where there is a will... there IS a way..... She made my day just as much as I hope her bouquet helped make her day special in this unfortunate weather related challenge.

Park Slope summer wedding at Benchmark.

This was a super important wedding me for SO many reasons, and there is kind of a crazy back story to go along with the series of events that fell into place. First of all, the bride totally found me on her own as she was searching for a local, brooklyn, designer. She contacted me about 3 months before her wedding at my beloved Benchmark. I say beloved because this was the first place I have an organic, grass fed steak in TWENTY years. It was absolutely delicious and did me good, as I am a recovering vegetarian! The bride and I got along naturally and easily as if we were already friends. I recommended members of my new group Brooklyn Betrothed . She ended up booking officiant Carissa Templeton, from our crew. They got along easily and naturally as hoped/expected.

The bride is a gardener and a total fan of herbs. We wanted to make this an important part of the floral designs and were able to incorporate this in almost every aspect. Her bouquet was filled with herbs including lavender, mint, sage, oregano and much much more. We hung test tubes stuffed with lavender, scabiosa pods, and lisianthus along the wall for an interesting, textural decor in the relaxed, casual, yet chic venue. The bride gave out potted herbs/plants to her guest as favors. We set these adorable little plants next to my vintage bird cage that was decorated with Juliette roses and jasmine.

By the end of her wedding, there were some crazy realizations! Her now husband was a childhood friend of a very close friend of mine. That close friend of mine was ALSO officiated by Carissa Templeton years ago and I was the florist! Carissa and I were working a wedding together 4 years ago and didn't even know it. Small small world (:

Bright bouquet for a Brooklyn bride.

My lovely client contacted me months ago for the personal flowers for her July 30th wedding at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. She wanted all brightly colored, happy flowers including calla's, gerbera daisies, crespedia, spray roses and seeded euch. We also added some vintage red button's down the front of the bouquet for extra cuteness (:

Brooklyn Botanic gardens summer wedding flowers.

This was my other July 23rd wedding that took place at one of my favorite places to work, the Brooklyn Botanic gardens. The bride was looking for a whimsical, funky, seasonal flowers using bright colors including cobalt blue, yellows, melons and white. Together we collected the cobalt blue vintage bottles to mix in with the vintage silver bud vases and my mercury bottle tea light holders. She also really wanted to have a natural touch being that we were in the BBG, so we incorporated a natural stump riser which is always a nice way to unite the collection of bottles. She wanted her bridal bouquet to be most sun flowers and her girls to have a seasonal mix as well as wild flowers. We used hydrangea, asters, thistle, crespedia, daisies, and greens. I loved working with this bride. She had a vision, yet, totally let me do my thing too. She was relaxed, happy and totally not worried about her flowers, which is always the best complement (: Enjoy!

Housing works, SoHo bookstore wedding.

This sweet lil wedding took place on July 23th at the charming Housing Works bookstore in NYC. The bride wanted fluffy, soft, "whip cream" looking flowers. We wanted to use peonies, but, they just ended! We trickled some bud vases along the long tables (professional photos to come) as well as something tall and interesting for the buffet area. The bride had a lovely purple bird cage vail with a flower, so, I tied in that color into the bridal bouquet by using mini Aluim flowers. We used Juliette roses, hydrangea, delphinium, pale pink roses, lavender, brunia, super pale pink celosia, queen ann lace, papyrus, chamomile, jasmine, and scabiosa pods.