By Chelsie Roberts
As this spring/summer bridal season opens and engagements are in full thrall, the pendulum swings and love’s timekeeper is making sure that the fluttering tick tocks of love’s heartbeat are harmonized. Picture the moment. An anticipatory want-to-be bride waits to chime “yes!” with a wink’s timing as he gets down on one knee. Time stands still and the moment is captured in memory just like a watch’s chronograph stops in an instant, or as a flower bud bursts open in anthesis of it’s beautiful life. It’s a blossoming time for romance abound and all is well - a timeless first recital to the real life odyssey of marriage that will soon commence. She's a soon to be bride, a modern woman, perhaps she loves trends, style. Perhaps she’s classic, sleek, refined. The type of bride varies as much as the types of blooms that are used within a bouquet. The possibilities are endless and the new trends are now including everything from buttons, to brooches feathers and more. How does a bride choose? For this we consulted expert Simon Lycett, floral decorator to crowned heads of the world and expert on all things bouquet.
This year’s popular blooms are of the utmost beauty. Simon notes the classics are still in demand. “It’s all of those super favorites, everybody adores them. Peonies are always very popular, roses and spray roses are hugely, hugely popular. Lots and lots of brides still adore stephanotis, as do I and I’m madly in love with gorgeous lily of the valley.” 2014 year is a year of color for brides. And who doesn’t love a pop of color? “I’ve noticed that recently a lot of our brides are using color within their bouquets.” says Simon. “It used to be that we had a real want for white and ivory bouquets - very simple. It was a dome of roses, a dome of peonies, hydrangeas, that sort of thing, but recently quite a lot of our brides, if their not going down the very classical route of lily of the valley and beautiful Stephanotis are quite inclined to have some pops of color within their bouquets. And they’re some quite wonderful color choices of corals and peachy pinks all those shades are back in. I started 20 some years ago, and those were the colors of choice. It’s really interesting to see how things have turned full circle, the lattes, the nudes, the peaches, the corals, they’re wonderful warm colors, gorgeous.”
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Simon warns that although color can be beautiful not all colors are a wise choice, “I think one of the most overlooked things from brides and from grooms is bearing in mind if they wish to choose to use color, they need to consider photographically what the effect will be. Also they need to bear in mind what their personal flowers are that they’re carrying and holding in conjunction with their bridesmaids, their grooms-men, their ushers and their parents. That little photographic group together needs to be very holistic, and look beautiful, and be matched. It needs to have a tonality that links through and therefore you need to choose colors that are sympathetic and photographically work very well. I think that dark blues can become quite a recessive color in photographs. It can often look like darkness and a black hole, and in photos if you’ve got a lovely light dress and suddenly your carrying a bouquet with lots of dark colors it can look just like a big black hole.” Not only does a bride need to consider color issues that may arise, she also needs consider embellishments etc. While many of the pop bridal trends are exciting, they might not necessarily be right for every bride. So what does an expert think about new bridal trends that include non-floral items such as antique gems and feathered plumes? He says, “Some of them are amazing, amazing, amazing! I follow people on Twitter that make bouquets with nothing but pieces of jewelry, buttons and all sorts of clever engineered stuff. I think they
are incredible – I adore them. I think you need to think long and hard about them before you choose trends like having a specific fashion led bouquet, or having a very fashion led dress, or hairdo. As he laughs about hairdos of the past that he later came to regret, he cautions that a bride needs to think about her wedding photos and be careful to consider if she will be happy from them years from now. When she is showing them to her grandchildren how will she feel? He says, “Yes you want to say look at me, I did live. Didn’t I have a great life, but there also needs to be an element of the classic in there. You don’t want to be too gimmicky. And I do worry that one or two of those bouquets can be a tiny bit gimmicky.” With this in mind, you may be asking yourself what you can do with your flowers to make them stand out and add some personality into your blooms. “I think if there are little personal items that resonate with your life, like if your name is Button adding some buttons, or if you’re a tailor or work with fabrics then you could make some cute little roses out of ribbons and fabric and incorporate them.” says Simon. He also discussed adding an heirloom or an item of personal meaning. These personality items shouldn’t be the prominent in the display but hidden or to tuck somewhere in the back in the bride’s view. “It’s the sort of thing that is beautiful for just the bride to see. I think the magic of it is the fact that I know it’s there. The bride knows it’s there. Her mother knows
it’s there. The granny might know it’s there, but nobody else knows. I had a bride whose grandmother had passed away shortly before the wedding took place, and she was called Iris. We did her bouquet just the way we had always planned and in the back I popped in one tiny little white iris.” He also notes that a bit of glam can be added. “Of course we’ve all seen lots of beads, sparkles, crystal and diamanté being incorporated within bouquets. It certainly can add a fabulous little twinkly effect if that’s the look that you’re after, so don’t be shy in having a little bit of sparkle added in your bouquet but in a subtle way.” Not every bride is extremely keen on having flowers for her decoration. Non-floral items are extremely popular and Simon is no stranger to this. Brides should be creative with their florist if flowers are not what they prefer. “We’ve created twelve foot tall stacks of candles on lucite in the middles of tables so that when you walk in it appears as if it’s just a huge column of candlelight hovering above each table. And we’ve filled tabletops with marshmallows so that when you walk in the whole room looks your going to sit and eat off a pink and white surface. We’ve created amazing, amazing giant flowers out of sweets and candy that fit into huge giant vases, in the middles of the tables so that it’s a total fantasyland. I love to take a strand of something that the bride is really into and interpret that.” In the planning of the wedding with the barrage of new trends to consider, whilst trying to decide which cake, what theme, the location and what dress designer should adorn the bride, Simon gives these final pieces of advice. “Don’t be over ambitious if you don’t have a vast budget. Use your money wisely and listen to the florist about how you can spend your budget… If you’re on a relatively restricted budget, be really sensible and clever about how you spend your money. If you walk into a reception hall and there is one vast stunning amazing floral decoration that everybody notices in the room, it will have so much more impact and make much more of a talking point for years to come than if you try to dilute and spread your money in loads of hundreds of little tiny decorations dotted around on every surface that will be so easily overlooked. One big statement piece is a much better way to spend your money.” He also says, “Be aware that you must never compromise on anything that you carry as a bride and that you wear as a groom, because those are the photos that you live with forever. The flowers for your ceremony will be in some of the pictures, and the flowers on your tables at dinner will be in some of the pictures, but on the whole the image that you live with is the one of you with your partner, holding your personal flowers. Make sure that they are beautiful and just what you want.”
Simon Lycett has been creating flowers for over 20 years. He has worked for film starts, royalty, footballers and more.