Significance and Meaning

Selecting the perfect blooms for your bouquet might seem to be a question of aesthetics, but there is actually a lot more to flowers than the way they look. The meaning of most flowers dates back to the end of the nineteenth century in England. The reserve of the Victorians prevented them from discussing emotions, so a sort of flower code helped men to tell women how they felt about them.

Before you go ahead and order your wedding flowers, check out the meaning of certain blooms to be sure your bouquet signifies true love and not infidelity or mistrust.

• Roses

  are by far the most popular flower used in wedding bouquets, corsages, buttonholes and table centres. This is hardly surprising as the rose signifies love, joy and beauty.  Different coloured roses have different meanings with white roses indicating innocence, ivory roses showing fidelity, red roses depicting passion, and dark pink roses expressing the couple’s gratitude for having met one another.

• Calla Lilies

  are currently very fashionable wedding flowers and they signify magnificent beauty. Calla lilies add an element of elegance and sophistication to your wedding, and can be used on their own to create a simple yet striking bouquet or centrepiece.

• Stephanotis

  is a traditional bridal flower, shaped a little like a trumpet.  Their popularity at weddings becomes clear when their significance is explained; stephanotis is a symbol of marital happiness.

• Chrysanthemums

  can be combined easily with other flowers as they have no scent and so are perfect for bridal bouquets. The name literally means golden flower, but the chrysanthemum signifies wealth, abundance and truth, which are welcome in any marriage.

• Orchids

  are a fashionable choice for weddings, partly because of their large price tag and partly because of their striking appearance. However, they are also a good choice because of their meaning, which is love and beauty.

• Tulips

  are best suited to spring wedding, and come is a huge variety of colours.  They symbolise undying love and passion, which makes them a perfect wedding motif, but they are very fragile and may get easily damaged as part of a bouquet.

Wedding flowers to avoid

There are some flowers that may be beautiful, but have a negative meaning that you might not want to associate with your wedding. In some cases it is just certain colours of one particular flower that have an unfavourable meaning. Of course, if one of these is your favourite flower you may decide to ignore superstition and just choose it anyway.

Try to avoid larkspur, meaning infidelity and lavender, signifying distrust, as these are certainly not emotions you want associated with your wedding.  You might also rule out foxglove and yellow lilies, which mean insincerity and falsehood respectively. A Christmas rose suggests scandal, and a marigold depicts grief, so these are also perhaps best avoided.

If you are having a yellow theme tread carefully as yellow carnations show disdain, yellow chrysanthemums signify slighted love, and yellow roses mean jealousy.  Be equally careful with a red colour scheme as the meaning of a red carnation is ‘alas my poor heart,’ and red poppies symbolize consolation.

Flowers have different meanings and you may use these to determine what type of flowers you would like.