There is nothing more synonymous with weddings than the bridal bouquet. The bridal bouquet are the flowers the bride walks down the aisle with, to meet her groom. They are in nearly every photo taken on the day by their wedding photographer and they usually reflect some of the personality of the bride herself. Be it the colours, style, even what the flowers are made of, they all speak of the choices and effort the bride has put into planning the wedding day.
Some brides might follow trends in colours, such as the yearly fashionable pantone colour sets that are released each year. Or perhaps they will hop on pintrest to find the most unique style of bridal bouquet available. Perhaps still they might ask a florest for help. In any case, as a wedding photographer I have seen a vast array of different ideas and styles of bridal bouquet you may consider for your own wedding.
Bridal bouquet ideas
Origami paper flowers
One common comment I hear on wedding days are how heavy bridal bouquets often are, they can get very heavy when using real flowers, as they can be quite large in size they hold a lot of water within their stems. It’s also a costly fact, as many brides opt for having a special ‘throwing’ bouquet made so they can throw it during their reception and not hurt anyone. One cunning solution to this I saw at Michaela and Paddy’s wedding where they had a bit of a Harry Potter theme going on, so she made her bridal bouquet out of pages from the Harry Potter books. This allowed for a very light, and easy to carry (and throw) bouquet.
Native flora
Native Australian flora is not something many people think of when designing their bouquet. There’s not usually a lot of different colours, nor big bushy flowers to add, such as roses and more traditional flowers. But when designing a wedding around a more rustic theme, incorporating aspects such as heshen and more rustic decorations, native flora really works well. Tessa and Robbie’s wedding really put this together well.
Beads
Having your bridal bouquet made out of anything other than flowers may seem a little odd until you see the effect it can have on your day. Bek’s bouquet was absolutely unique to her own personality and tastes. Made to compliment their wedding colours Bek’s hand-made creation gave a bit of sparkle and personality to what would otherwise be just another bunch of flowers held by a bride. The great thing about them are that they’d last forever! Very heavy though, so I wouldn’t recommend throwing one!
Draping flowers
By ‘draping’ flowers I mean the bottom of the flower arrangement droops towards the ground, creating a rather nice train-like effect kind of mirroring what a bridal gown might do. Danielle’s bridal bouquet was carefully designed and colour selected to compliment both her own and her bridal party’s gowns. You can see the upside down tear drop of a shape the trailing flowers make towards the bottom of the arrangement. It’s all very elegant and works perfectly with a more traditional style wedding.
Artificial with jewels
The great advantage of having artificial flowers in your bridal bouquet is that you’re able to decorate them however you’d like! As was the case at Monika & Craig’s wedding, where Monkia had her bouquet studded with little gems at the centre of each artificial flower. She was also able to have her flower arrangement small and easy to carry around with her all day as they were as light as a feather.
Local Wildflowers
As with the Native fauna idea above, the local windflowers in display at Belinda and Jono’s wedding really made their native glamour photos stand out, and add a bit of natural green to their overall wedding theme. I like to think that Jono ran about in the early hours of the morning to pick them all for the girls, but I’m sure that diddn’t happen 😀
There are plenty of other ideas out there for your bridal bouquets, I just figured I’d put together some of the more novel designs I’ve come across in my years as a professional Adelaide wedding photographer!
