Understanding the Meaning of Your Wedding Flowers

When you’re planning a wedding, you definitely are faced with numerous decisions. From picking the perfect wedding invitations to finding a delicious wedding cake to hiring entertainment for your reception, all of the details really need to be in place for your special day.

One of those important details is picking your wedding flowers. You may not know this, but many people believe that each flower and even the various colors of flowers have special meaning. During the Victorian Era, brides chose their wedding flowers very carefully because all of their guests were well aware of these meanings. The wrong flower would spell disaster for the marriage!

Today, most of us realize that’s not the case. However, paying attention to those meanings when you make your floral choices can be fun and interesting. Here are some of the most common examples.

Wedding Flowers to Consider

Obviously, the most common wedding flower choice is the rose. They show up in bouquets, in hair decorations, even as embellishments on wedding invitations. But what do they mean? Well, that depends on the color of the rose. In a wedding, you’d probably want to avoid pink roses which mean friendship, but red roses stand for passionate love and yellow roses represent joy. Actually combining red and white roses symbolizes unity which makes the combination ideal for weddings.

Of course not everyone wants to use roses. Tulips also have important meanings. For example, red tulips signify a declaration of love while white tulips stand for forgiveness which may not be the best choice for your wedding.

Here are a few other popular wedding flowers and their meanings:

• Day lilies = enthusiasm
• Orange lilies = burning passion
• White lilies = return to happiness
• Gerber daises = innocence
• Orchids = deep love
• Orange blossoms = ever-lasting love
• Ivy = fidelity
• Lavender = devotion
• Yellow iris = passion

Wedding Flowers to Avoid

Like yellow roses and white tulips, the meanings of some flowers just don’t fit most weddings. In fact, some flowers might want to be avoided altogether because of their negative meanings. Here are a few examples:

• Yellow hyacinth = jealousy
• Jonquil = sympathy
• Larkspur = fickleness
• Marigold = grief
• Oleander = caution
• Rhododendron = danger
• Scabrous (including the sadly named “Mourning Bride” flowers = unfortunate love

Not only should you avoid these flowers at your wedding, but you might even want to make sure they don’t sneak onto your wedding invitations either. After all, to pull off the perfect wedding you need all of the luck you can get.