What Flowers Are Given to Young People From Parents and Guests?

A wed­ding is not just a cel­e­bra­tion. This is a trib­ute to tra­di­tions, a kind of rit­u­al of hon­or­ing a new fam­i­ly, which has come down to us from time immemo­r­i­al. And as it should be for any sacra­ment, it has its inalien­able attrib­ut­es.

One of the lead­ing roles in the wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny is played by flow­ers. They are present every­where — in the dec­o­ra­tion of the hall, the hood of the new­ly­weds’ car, in the bride’s hair. And, of course, in the hands of the guests.

And if a wed­ding is a rit­u­al, then the flow­ers on it are a sym­bol­ism. There­fore, it is so impor­tant to choose the right bou­quet as a gift for the new­ly­weds, to express your wish­es and good feel­ings with the help of flow­ers. And also try to make the bou­quet to your taste, be as orig­i­nal as pos­si­ble and not get lost in the sea of ​​oth­er wed­ding flow­ers.

The wed­ding bou­quet should fit into the con­cept of the wed­ding and serve not only as a man­i­fes­ta­tion of the orig­i­nal­i­ty of the donor. Rather, the bou­quet will cor­re­spond to the for­mu­la: wed­ding flow­ers are a wish of hap­pi­ness to the new­ly­weds, cap­tured in nat­ur­al beau­ty.

There are some unspo­ken rules for mak­ing wed­ding bou­quets. It also does not hurt to know that in each coun­try and nation­al cul­ture, these rules may vary to one degree or anoth­er. There­fore, hav­ing received an invi­ta­tion to a wed­ding abroad, it is advis­able to get acquaint­ed with the cul­tur­al char­ac­ter­is­tics of the invit­ing par­ty, as well as their wed­ding tra­di­tions and the lan­guage of flow­ers, which is hon­ored by the locals.

For wed­ding cer­e­monies they are as fol­lows.

• The bou­quet must be appro­pri­ate. It should be clar­i­fied in advance in what envi­ron­ment the event will take place. For a clas­sic wed­ding in a lux­u­ri­ous restau­rant, a bou­quet of wild flow­ers is not suit­able, even if it seems sweet and sin­cere.
• It would be use­ful to take into account the time and place of deliv­ery of the bou­quet. If you plan to con­grat­u­late the new­ly­weds after the wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny in the reg­istry office, then it is bet­ter that the bou­quet is of the usu­al, con­ve­nient form. If the guest is invit­ed imme­di­ate­ly to the restau­rant, then it would be more prac­ti­cal to present a beau­ti­ful bas­ket of flow­ers, which can be placed in a con­spic­u­ous place and not look for a place for a bou­quet.

• Flow­ers should not be scat­tered. They are fas­tened either with gift wrap­ping or floris­tic fas­ten­ers, so that when pre­sent­ed, the bou­quet does not crum­ble in the hands of the bride and does not cause an awk­ward fuss. It should be borne in mind that the moment of giv­ing is most often com­mon to every­one, and the bride and groom will have to accept a huge num­ber of flow­ers at once.
• Opaque wrap­ping mate­r­i­al must be removed from the flow­ers before deliv­ery. Only trans­par­ent mica pack­ag­ing is allowed, serv­ing as a hold­er and dec­o­ra­tion.
• The num­ber of large flow­ers in a bou­quet must nec­es­sar­i­ly be odd, since an even num­ber is tra­di­tion­al­ly placed in mem­o­ry of the depart­ed.

There are no strict require­ments for the flo­ral gifts of nature — each flower is beau­ti­ful in its own way, and every­one has dif­fer­ent tastes. But it is not cus­tom­ary to give flow­ers of dark shades for a wed­ding, no mat­ter how chic they may seem. Accord­ing to the wed­ding tra­di­tion, the dom­i­nant col­or at the cel­e­bra­tion is white. It sym­bol­izes the puri­ty of thoughts and ten­der feel­ings of the new­ly­weds.

The excep­tion is exclu­sive wed­dings where an orig­i­nal style or a spe­cif­ic col­or is planned. For exam­ple, an infor­mal wed­ding in the Goth­ic style, a wed­ding in nature or eth­no style, a cos­tume wed­ding. But as a rule, the spous­es inform the invi­tees about such details in advance.

It is worth not­ing that the flo­ral rule about pas­tel col­ors does not have a strict frame­work. It is rather a good tra­di­tion, a trib­ute to the bride’s wed­ding dress. For lovers of bright col­ors in bou­quets, the sea­son­al option is suit­able. After all, the bou­quet can be beat­en in the spir­it of the sea­son.

• Spring is char­ac­ter­ized by del­i­cate shades of lily of the val­ley or lilac. The awak­en­ing of nature, as a sym­bol of the emerg­ing new fam­i­ly. After a long win­ter, young green­ery is espe­cial­ly pleas­ing to the eye, so there can be a lot of it in a bou­quet. For exam­ple, sprigs of aspara­gus or orna­men­tal fern.

• In win­ter, solemn white flow­ers will look great, as if crys­tal from frost. It is desir­able that they be of noble vari­eties — ros­es, lilies, orchids. Or, on the con­trary, you can choose live­ly and bright col­ors, as a sym­bol of a sun­ny sum­mer in a frosty win­ter.

• In autumn, col­ors of warm shades of red and gold are appro­pri­ate, because this is the time for har­vest, and as a sym­bol of abun­dance and pros­per­i­ty for a new mar­ried cou­ple. In late autumn, when win­ter has not yet come into its own, and nature is rather dull, the bright col­ors of flow­ers will dec­o­rate the cel­e­bra­tion.

• Sum­mer is a time of flow­er­ing, a vari­ety of flower choic­es. At this time of the year, it is best to focus on the gen­er­al rules or on the pref­er­ences of the heroes of the occa­sion. If the weath­er is very hot, then the col­or scheme of the bou­quet can be refresh­ing in spring, with­out an over­abun­dance of bright col­ors. But in a cloudy sum­mer, a bou­quet with rich col­ors will warm the bride and add a fes­tive mood to every­one present.

Mak­ing bou­quets is a whole sci­ence, which, how­ev­er, you can mas­ter on your own. The main thing is taste and sense of pro­por­tion. The splen­dor of the com­po­si­tion depends on the num­ber of flow­ers in the bou­quet, but an over­abun­dance of col­ors and ele­ments leads to coarse­ness and sloven­li­ness.

A few sim­ple rules will warn against the mis­take of turn­ing a styl­ish bou­quet into a taste­less “broom”:

• if the bou­quet con­sists of sev­er­al large flow­ers (ros­es, peonies, ger­beras) and many small ones, then there should be at least 3–5 large ele­ments;
• exquis­ite bou­quets of small ros­es are in the amount of 25–27 pieces;
• com­po­si­tions con­sist­ing only of large flow­ers (for exam­ple, ger­beras or peonies), in an ide­al pro­por­tion, have 9–11 pieces.

In the mod­ern world, wed­ding tra­di­tions are still strong, despite all the new­fan­gled trends. A tra­di­tion that has devel­oped over the past hun­dred years regard­ing cer­tain col­ors is con­sid­ered a clas­sic. A hun­dred years is a con­di­tion­al peri­od of time, but it was with the advent of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry, with the advent of reg­istry offices and oth­er social insti­tu­tions in our coun­try, that some flow­ers acquired an unspo­ken sta­tus of belong­ing to cer­tain events.

So, in the hier­ar­chy of wed­ding flow­ers, the rose is the undis­put­ed leader, the queen of the ball. But tulips in our coun­try for a long time were con­sid­ered unpre­ten­tious flow­ers on duty, which it was cus­tom­ary to present at offi­cial cel­e­bra­tions of the mid­dle class. But there is anoth­er side of the coin — tulips are con­sid­ered a sym­bol of spring and eter­nal youth. And also, along with mimosa, they are a tra­di­tion­al gift for the wom­en’s hol­i­day on March 8. They are suit­able for a mod­est spring wed­ding, espe­cial­ly if the event takes place in a nar­row cir­cle of close peo­ple.

The fate of car­na­tions was less suc­cess­ful — red ones became a sym­bol of polit­i­cal events, and white ones — funer­al cer­e­monies. But today it is quite accept­able to give a large lush bou­quet of white car­na­tions on not very long stems for a wed­ding.

Let’s return to sym­bol­ism and con­sid­er the lan­guage of flow­ers in the con­text of actu­al clas­sics. The sci­ence of flu­o­rog­ra­phy, in the com­mon peo­ple — the lan­guage of flow­ers, came to us from the East and has been firm­ly entrenched in Euro­pean cul­ture since the Mid­dle Ages. Flow­ers served as sym­bols and could tell what was not cus­tom­ary to speak out loud. With the advent of indus­tri­al­iza­tion and the eman­ci­pa­tion of soci­ety, this roman­tic sci­ence, it would seem, has sunk into obliv­ion. But on the thresh­old of the 21st cen­tu­ry, inter­est in her revived with renewed vig­or, the mate­ri­als of the past were stud­ied, and today any self-respect­ing florist can tell, What does a par­tic­u­lar flower sym­bol­ize?

• Rose — an uncon­di­tion­al sym­bol of love and nobil­i­ty in all ages. Since the time of knights and beau­ti­ful ladies, this flower has been an invari­able attribute of all lovers. Red ros­es sym­bol­ize pas­sion, while white ros­es sym­bol­ize puri­ty and pla­ton­ic feel­ings. In wed­ding tra­di­tions, white ros­es are used most often in the bride’s bou­quet, and for a gift bou­quet from guests, you can choose pink, cream or a gra­di­ent (tran­si­tion from one col­or to anoth­er).

• Peony — a lush flower with a won­der­ful aro­ma, in the lan­guage of flow­ers means a sweet cheer­ful life, a wish of good luck and joy. In the coun­tries of the East, he is cred­it­ed with mag­i­cal prop­er­ties aimed at attract­ing wealth and hon­ors. A wed­ding bou­quet with peonies always turns out to be chic, fra­grant and fes­tive.

• Lily. A noble flower, not infe­ri­or in its grandeur to a rose. It has a rich his­to­ry in her­aldry, sym­bol­izes mate­r­i­al lux­u­ry, respectabil­i­ty and high demands. No won­der the lily has been the emblem of French roy­al­ty through­out almost its entire his­to­ry. Lilies look gor­geous in any bou­quet, and white lilies as a gift for new­ly­weds are the height of grace and grace.

• Orchid. It entered the wed­ding fash­ion rel­a­tive­ly recent­ly, for a long time remain­ing an exot­ic flower for our fel­low cit­i­zens. Exquis­ite orchid buds are a sym­bol of sophis­ti­ca­tion and lux­u­ri­ous fem­i­nin­i­ty. They are among the three “roy­al” sym­bols, but unlike ros­es and lilies, the price of orchids is incred­i­bly high. This is due to the pecu­liar­i­ties and dif­fi­cul­ties asso­ci­at­ed with grow­ing a plant.

• Ger­bera — the per­fect gift choice for a cheer­ful cou­ple. These bright fresh flow­ers keep their shape per­fect­ly and seem to exude pos­i­tive and good mood. They sym­bol­ize youth, joy of life, open­ness to the world. Ger­beras look good both in a gen­er­al bou­quet in the same col­or scheme, and on their own.

For guests invit­ed to the wed­ding of a col­league or a dis­tant rel­a­tive, it will be quite enough to con­fine them­selves to the usu­al bou­quet and gen­er­al require­ments for the com­po­si­tion. There is no need to think over the orig­i­nal design, in this case, flow­ers are a sym­bol of respect and wish­es for hap­pi­ness. The bou­quet will take its place among oth­er donat­ed flow­ers, and this will also become a kind of con­tri­bu­tion and sym­bol­ism.

Close friends of the groom and brides­maids are the cir­cle clos­est to the new­ly­weds. From them, a young cou­ple receives atten­tion and sup­port on this day, it is they who become the insti­ga­tors of the hol­i­day, its most active par­tic­i­pants. Bou­quets of friends are filled with spe­cial mean­ings, like encrypt­ed mes­sages and unspo­ken assur­ances of sin­cere friend­ship.

For close peo­ple, choos­ing the right option is not dif­fi­cult, giv­en the pref­er­ences of the new­ly­weds. The groom’s friends can inquire about the tastes of the friend’s bride in advance, and at the wed­ding please her with their “guess”. It is even eas­i­er for the brides­maids to decide on a bou­quet — it can be flow­ers that match the wed­ding dress or the style of the ban­quet hall.

The par­ents of the bride and groom at the wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny have the hon­orary sta­tus of patri­archs of the cel­e­bra­tion, because their chil­dren them­selves enter adult­hood today and cre­ate a new fam­i­ly. For many dads and moms, this is a day of hap­pi­ness with tears of joy in their eyes, hap­py emo­tions and expe­ri­ences.

The bride will be espe­cial­ly pleased to receive flow­ers from the groom’s par­ents, sym­bol­iz­ing good feel­ings and readi­ness to accept her into her fam­i­ly. For a bou­quet, any del­i­cate buds of pas­tel col­ors are suit­able. It can be grace­ful lilies, del­i­cate hydrangea, bright peonies.

It is impor­tant for the bride’s par­ents to present a bou­quet intend­ed not only for their daugh­ter, but also for their son-in-law. It is worth show­ing a lit­tle imag­i­na­tion and taste in order to com­bine the wish­es of the new­ly­weds in flow­ers. For exam­ple, to beat a bou­quet in con­trast­ing col­ors, like yin-yang sym­bols. Of course, black is exclud­ed in wed­ding bou­quets, but it is quite pos­si­ble to use bright red as a sym­bol of mas­culin­i­ty or blue as the col­or of respectabil­i­ty. Com­bin­ing these flow­ers with fem­i­nine pink or blue will empha­size the dual sym­bol­ism of the bou­quet.

Fresh flow­ers are con­stant com­pan­ions of any wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny, but there will always be a guest who wants to become the most orig­i­nal in his wish­es to the new­ly­weds. For an expe­ri­enced florist or just a per­son with imag­i­na­tion and taste, noth­ing is impos­si­ble! It is enough just to grab the orig­i­nal idea by the tail and turn it into a chic bou­quet.

• From flow­ers. Petals of plain buds can be dec­o­rat­ed with trans­par­ent or mir­ror crys­tals of rhine­stones, rem­i­nis­cent of dew drops. A bou­quet with mul­ti-col­ored rhine­stones is also suit­able for a gift — they will shim­mer and attract atten­tion. Recent­ly, the ser­vice of dec­o­rat­ing petals with pic­tures or inscrip­tions has appeared on the floris­tic mar­ket. This option can be a very unusu­al gift if you express a wish for hap­pi­ness on a bud of a sin­gle-col­ored large flower. You can also trans­fer a small copy of a pho­to of a cou­ple to a large calla petal, for exam­ple.

• From can­dy. A chic con­fec­tionery bou­quet will not leave indif­fer­ent not only the bride and groom, but also every­one around. A can­dy gift can be made in the form of a lush bou­quet — in this case, sweets are attached to long skew­ers and dec­o­rat­ed with satin rib­bons. Anoth­er option is check­out in the shop­ping cart. It is impor­tant to con­sid­er here that it is not enough to put sweets in a con­tain­er, they also need to be dec­o­rat­ed with flow­ers.

• From soft toys. Cute ted­dy bears and bun­nies can be an orig­i­nal gift for a very young bride. They are designed to evoke a feel­ing of ten­der­ness and ten­der­ness. Often, addi­tion­al details are attached to such small toys in the form of bows and hearts with wish­es or con­fes­sions.

• From dec­o­ra­tive mate­ri­als. Depend­ing on the sea­son of the wed­ding, the pref­er­ences of the new­ly­weds and the style of the event, you can use non-stan­dard ele­ments to dec­o­rate the bou­quet. For sum­mer com­po­si­tions, shells, mul­ti-col­ored feath­ers of exot­ic birds will be an excel­lent addi­tion. In autumn bou­quets, spikelets of wheat will be appro­pri­ate as a sym­bol of fer­til­i­ty. Win­ter com­po­si­tions can be dec­o­rat­ed with cones with super­fi­cial hoar­frost, thin sprigs of pine nee­dles.

Each cul­ture has its own unspo­ken rules, accord­ing to which cer­tain flow­ers become per­sona non gra­ta at wed­ding cer­e­monies. In our coun­try, all yel­low flow­ers are sub­ject­ed to such, per­haps unfair “per­se­cu­tion”. They are con­sid­ered to be a sym­bol of sep­a­ra­tion. Although, for exam­ple, in the UK, yel­low flow­ers are a sym­bol of the sun and a joy­ful life.

Flow­ers of black and dark pur­ple tones are exclud­ed from wed­ding bou­quets. Black is the col­or of sor­row and pur­ple is the col­or of sad­ness.

It is not cus­tom­ary to give arti­fi­cial flow­ers made of plas­tic for a wed­ding. Recent­ly, flow­ers made of print­ed satin or flow­ing silk have come into fash­ion, but here you need to be care­ful — the new­ly­weds may not share the enthu­si­asm for such inno­va­tions.

Dried herbar­i­ums, pot­ted flow­ers and any sharp plants that can hurt are not suit­able for a gift.

How to choose a bou­quet of flow­ers for a wed­ding, see the fol­low­ing video.