How to have fabulous eco-chic wedding flowers

Wed­dings can be lav­ish affairs and in the cur­rent eco­nomic and envi­ron­men­tal cli­mate there is an increas­ing trend towards opt­ing for a more sim­ple and per­son­alised cel­e­bra­tion.  Smaller, inti­mate, ‘home-made’ wed­dings are def­i­nitely in at the moment.  For many cou­ples splurg­ing a huge amount of money on extrav­a­gant table cen­tre­pieces that are only going to be seen for a few hours sim­ply doesn’t feel right.

More and more of us are aware of the envi­ron­men­tal impact of our pur­chases, and lets face it, the aver­age wed­ding involves a lot of pur­chas­ing.  As a result many brides are start­ing to seek out florists who are will­ing to source locally grown or eth­i­cally pro­duced wed­ding flow­ers.
So with that in mind, here are our top tips for fab­u­lous eco-chic wed­ding flowers:

Ask your wed­ding florist about sea­sonal UK grown flowers

If you are con­cerned about ‘flower miles’ ask your florist about UK grown flow­ers.  Most florists will prob­a­bly pre­fer to source their flow­ers from Hol­land.  There are two very good rea­sons for this – qual­ity and reli­a­bil­ity.  The qual­ity and avail­abil­ity of UK grown flow­ers can be less reli­able than that of flow­ers sourced from Hol­land and obvi­ously your florist will want to ensure that the flow­ers you’ve cho­sen are avail­able on the day and of ‘wed­ding quality’.

The range of UK grown flow­ers avail­able is also quite lim­ited, par­tic­u­larly in the win­ter months.  If your heart is set on a par­tic­u­lar out of sea­son flower then it is likely that your florist will be able to source it from Holland.

How­ever, if you are get­ting mar­ried in the spring or sum­mer and are rea­son­ably flex­i­ble about your choice of flow­ers it should be pos­si­ble to source UK grown sea­sonal flow­ers.  Lisianthus, Nar­cissi, Alstrome­ria, Del­phini­ums, Roses, Sweet Peas and Freesia are all avail­able from UK grow­ers dur­ing their nat­ural grow­ing sea­son.  Sea­sonal flow­ers are usu­ally much cheaper than flow­ers imported out of sea­son so you’ll be help­ing to keep costs down too.

Fair­trade wed­ding flowers

Despite con­cern about ‘flower miles’, iron­i­cally it is often more envi­ron­men­tally friendly to import flow­ers grown abroad in their nat­ural con­di­tions in Africa or South Amer­ica and then freighted to Britain than it is to buy flow­ers grown under glass in Europe using sub­stan­tial amounts of heat­ing and light­ing.  Think about Fair­trade flow­ers grown in devel­op­ing coun­tries as an alter­na­tive to locally grown blooms.

Use nat­ural confetti

Many venues no longer allow paper con­fetti to be thrown dur­ing cer­e­monies.  Nat­ural rose petals are a beau­ti­ful 100% biodegrad­able option.

Give your wed­ding flow­ers away

Choose cen­tre­pieces that can be given away as gifts or favours to your guests or alter­na­tively arrange for your flow­ers to be deliv­ered to a local home for the elderly where oth­ers will be able to enjoy them after your wedding.

Elim­i­nate unnec­es­sary waste

Ask your florist to design a bou­quet that does not con­tain any unnec­es­sary waste that isn’t biodegrad­able.  A tra­di­tional shower bou­quet will con­tain lots of elab­o­rate wiring and floristry tape, whereas a sim­ple hand-tied bou­quet should be fully biodegradable.

Flower seed favours

Off­set your car­bon foot­print by giv­ing your guests flower seeds as a reminder of your day.

Use beau­ti­ful vases and fewer flowers

By using beau­ti­ful vases and a skilled flo­ral designer it’s pos­si­ble to cre­ate dis­plays of stun­ning impact with just a few flow­ers.  Choose a florist with a good selec­tion of vases for hire in a style that will suits your wed­ding theme.

Choose planted centrepieces

Use plants instead of cut flow­ers for table cen­tre­pieces.  Then after­wards give them away as gifts or take them home and plant them in your gar­den.  Bulbs such as Nar­cissi or Mus­cari are per­fect for this or try herbs like Laven­der or Rosemary.

Photo cred­its: White Mus­cari — Flower Coun­cil of Hol­land, Orchids — Martha Stew­art Weddings

Thanks to Helen Pow­ell, wed­ding and event florist from Lilac and Lily, for sub­mit­ting this arti­cle to the Eng­lish wed­ding web­site. I love all these ideas, espe­cially recy­cling the flow­ers at a home for the elderly (or a hos­pice, perhaps).

Helen has a won­der­ful blog of her own at www.lilacandlily.com/blog — I highly rec­om­mend a visit, it’s full of wed­ding flower inspi­ra­tion and a beau­ti­ful lit­tle part of the interweb!