Choose a Bridal Bouquet for a Wedding of Burgundy Callas With White Roses and Red Freesias

Choos­ing a wed­ding bou­quet for a bride is a tru­ly dif­fi­cult task. It should be far from banal, of course, beau­ti­ful and in per­fect har­mo­ny with the bride’s dress, the groom’s suit and the gen­er­al sur­round­ings of the cer­e­mo­ny. In addi­tion, fes­tive flow­ers should rep­re­sent a whole range of emo­tions: from slight sad­ness and ten­der­ness to hope for a brighter future. Grace­ful calla lilies do an excel­lent job with all of the above tasks.

It should start with the fact that South Africa is called the birth­place of callas. The Eng­lish offi­cers who served there noticed these beau­ti­ful flow­ers and brought them home. The first bou­quets, by the way, were intend­ed for the roy­al fam­i­ly. Then — in the twen­ties of the last cen­tu­ry — this species began to grad­u­al­ly spread through­out Europe, and brides began to choose a bou­quet of callas for the wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny.

There was even a sign that if the flow­ers did not with­er until the next morn­ing, then the young cou­ple would be hap­py for many years in the cir­cle of a large fam­i­ly. The most valu­able both then and now are the types of calla zant­edeschia. In cul­ture, the Ethiopi­an zant­edesky is espe­cial­ly famous (in anoth­er way it is called the Ethiopi­an white­fly) and vari­eties of white callas bred on its basis.

Today, in Rus­sia, brides can choose for them­selves a bou­quet of calla lilies on such an unfor­get­table day. These flow­ers sym­bol­ize hope for a pros­per­ous and hap­py mar­riage. In addi­tion, they also have an addi­tion­al mys­ti­cal mean­ing — such a bou­quet will pro­tect the host­ess from any neg­a­tiv­i­ty. Sur­pris­ing­ly, in some coun­tries, the atti­tude towards callas is com­plete­ly oppo­site — they are called wid­ow flow­ers and are used not at wed­dings, but at funer­als. How­ev­er, this con­cept suc­cess­ful­ly fits into the ideas of the Slav­ic peo­ples about the bride. In Rus­sia, it has long been believed that a young girl dies at the cer­e­mo­ny, reborn as a mature woman.

The most com­mon white calla lilies, which mean the puri­ty and inno­cence of the bride. In addi­tion, they sym­bol­ize the bride’s desire for eter­nal hap­pi­ness in mar­riage. Red callas show pas­sion and rich­ness of feel­ings with­in a cou­ple. Pink flow­ers rep­re­sent ten­der­ness and tran­quil­i­ty, while yel­low flow­ers rep­re­sent loy­al­ty and atten­tive­ness, as well as the desire for pros­per­i­ty and suc­cess. Lilac tones speak of the ten­der­ness and trep­i­da­tion of the feel­ings of the young. The black vari­ety of flow­ers is asso­ci­at­ed with mys­tery, ele­gance, allur­ing fem­i­nin­i­ty and even aris­toc­ra­cy.

It is worth men­tion­ing that a wed­ding bou­quet of callas is not suit­able for every dress. Mer­maid and col­umn sil­hou­ettes, clas­sic straight mod­els and Empire style out­fits are con­sid­ered ide­al. In addi­tion, you can not over­do it with volu­mi­nous details on clothes — an over­ly dec­o­rat­ed dress will seem taste­less in a com­pa­ny with an ele­gant, lacon­ic bou­quet. There are some restric­tions regard­ing the fig­ure of the bride — plump and short girls should avoid elon­gat­ed callas. The fact is that the flow­ers will visu­al­ly short­en the fig­ure even more, mak­ing the whole image rather ridicu­lous and awk­ward.

The calla fam­i­ly is rich in numer­ous col­or vari­a­tions. You can choose clas­sic white and del­i­cate pink, bright yel­low and calm peach, juicy red and bur­gundy, dark pur­ple and black, pos­i­tive light green and even two-tone. All this sug­gests that the bride will be able to choose the very col­or that will match her desires and har­mo­nize with the decor of the cer­e­mo­ny.

For sum­mer and spring wed­dings, light, light and del­i­cate shades are more suit­able. - for exam­ple, white, beige, light yel­low and oth­ers. In the cold sea­son, bou­quets of rich orange, bright yel­low, pur­ple and bur­gundy red will look much bet­ter. It is worth men­tion­ing that the buds also have dif­fer­ent sat­u­ra­tion. For exam­ple, the shade ranges from light pur­ple to deep pur­ple, almost black. There are also iri­des­cent vari­a­tions, when one col­or pass­es into anoth­er.

And although callas look great in a mono-bou­quet, they are great com­bined with oth­er types of flow­ers. Ros­es, orchids, freesias, alstroe­me­rias and laven­der are called ide­al neigh­bors for them. When com­pos­ing a joint bou­quet, it is impor­tant to main­tain a bal­ance and ensure that one vari­ety does not over­shad­ow the oth­er. The use of over­ly lush flow­ers, such as peonies and dahlias, is exclud­ed, and, in gen­er­al, the main rule for com­pos­ing a bou­quet is the expres­sion “do not over­do it.” In a bou­quet, by the way, not only shades of dif­fer­ent flow­ers, but also smells should be har­mo­nious­ly com­bined. There­fore, the use of sev­er­al plants with rich pun­gent aro­mas is pro­hib­it­ed.

In gen­er­al, it should be men­tioned right away that calla lilies them­selves are so self-suf­fi­cient that they do not need an exces­sive wrap­per and a large num­ber of addi­tion­al details. In addi­tion, the shape of the bud allows you to assem­ble a com­po­si­tion of any size — to make it small and neat or large and lux­u­ri­ous. It is quite pos­si­ble to make a bou­quet of these flow­ers on your own. It is enough just to col­lect them in a neat bunch, trim the height of indi­vid­ual stems and cut off peek­ing pony­tails, and then tie them with a lace cord or rib­bon to match the dress. If you want to add a lit­tle vari­ety, then you should add some large ele­gant rich green leaves or twigs, as well as dec­o­rate with a pearl thread.

In those rare cas­es when a wed­ding is orga­nized in art nou­veau, min­i­mal­ist or avant-garde styles, then for a bou­quet it will be enough to com­bine snow-white and black callas, tying them with a neu­tral rib­bon. Snow-white buds are also har­mo­nious­ly com­ple­ment­ed by euca­lyp­tus or dra­cae­na leaves. Greens always add fresh­ness to the com­po­si­tion. To diver­si­fy such a bou­quet, you need to com­bine callas with a milky rose.

In addi­tion to tra­di­tion­al green leaves, it is rec­om­mend­ed to dec­o­rate bou­quets with lace and twigs, and in suit­able cas­es even with cones, feath­ers or shells. When form­ing a com­po­si­tion, you need to focus on the largest flower, for exam­ple, a rose, and place callas next to it so that they rise. Usu­al­ly calla lilies are locat­ed in the cen­ter and sur­round­ed by oth­er com­po­nents. Flow­ers are placed tight­ly, but so that one ele­ment does not drown out the oth­er. Every­thing is fixed in the mid­dle and at the begin­ning, and then an even over­all cut is made. Tape or oth­er cord is fixed with pins.

Speak­ing about the shape of the bou­quet, today the most pop­u­lar is the cas­cad­ing, which is very easy to imple­ment thanks to the long legs of callas. Mono-bou­quets are also pop­u­lar — as a rule, they are made up only of callas, but at the same time they do not look like sev­er­al copies, but like one large exot­ic flower. This is called glamelia. The sim­plest option is when the buds on long stems are neat­ly laid out in a spi­ral and tied with a cord. In the case of cre­at­ing a round com­po­si­tion, a large num­ber of var­i­ous plants are usu­al­ly required, so only callas are indis­pens­able.

Lacon­ic and dis­creet bou­quet was called Bie­der­meier. Many girls choose a veg­e­ta­tive style acces­so­ry — it looks very nat­ur­al and goes well with a wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny cel­e­brat­ed in nature. The­mat­ic extrav­a­gant cel­e­bra­tions require the use of a fan bou­quet, which rather serves as a bright dec­o­ra­tion for a wed­ding dress. A bou­quet of calla lilies is used at win­ter wed­dings accom­pa­nied by pho­to shoots.

Experts believe that when choos­ing a bou­quet of callas for a wed­ding, it is quite pos­si­ble to order it in advance. It will not dete­ri­o­rate at all — it will per­fect­ly wait for the solemn cer­e­mo­ny, and then for sev­er­al days it will delight its own­er. Flow­ers calm­ly do with­out water for almost 2 weeks — this, of course, great­ly sim­pli­fies the sit­u­a­tion: a tra­di­tion­al attribute can be select­ed and ordered a few days before the cer­e­mo­ny. By the way, if the calla heads are slight­ly low­ered, this indi­cates that there is too much mois­ture for them. It is enough to remove the bou­quet from the vase and put it away for a cou­ple of hours in a dry and unlit place.

Plants are not afraid of low tem­per­a­tures either — there­fore it is rec­om­mend­ed to choose them for win­ter wed­dings. With­stand­ing tem­per­a­tures down to minus forty, they will def­i­nite­ly sur­vive being out­side. The same applies to high tem­per­a­tures — calla lilies feel fine at forty degrees of heat, which means they will not fade at a hot July wed­ding. Toa drowned bou­quet in antic­i­pa­tion of a solemn day must be placed in cold water. True, you will also have to cut the stems a lit­tle every day. If the flow­ers fade a lit­tle, then it will be enough to get them out of the water, keep them in a dry place for about two hours, then scald the tips with boil­ing water and low­er them into melt­ed paraf­fin or wax for a cou­ple of sec­onds. In the event that the pro­ce­dure is per­formed cor­rect­ly, the life of the bou­quet will increase by four­teen days.

Despite all the advan­tages, it should be warned that the smell of these flow­ers is very bright and rich. There­fore, if the bride does not tol­er­ate long-term expo­sure to strong odors, it is bet­ter for her to either refuse such a choice alto­geth­er, or com­bine them with plants that have a neu­tral smell. There is a third option — ask the sell­er in the store to treat the bou­quet with a spe­cial solu­tion that elim­i­nates the smell. In this case, the bou­quet will no longer be fra­grant, but it will also be stored much less. Again, com­plet­ing the issue with the smell, you need to be pre­pared that these flow­ers quite eas­i­ly cause aller­gic reac­tions.

How to make a bridal bou­quet of callas with your own hands, see the next video.