By McKenna Corson
Trends in wedding floral design change as quickly as flowers bloom and wilt.
But for 2020, florists from Urban Orchid in the Ohio City and Little Italy neighborhoods of Cleveland, Paradise Flower Market in Woodmere and Breezewood Gardens & Gifts in Chagrin Falls advise couples to explore deep, lush greenery with unexpected pops of color like bold blues, burgundies and plums.
On top of those rich, natural tones, the florists provide their takes on what couples should do to make their floral design something to be remembered, as well as advice to make that aspect of their wedding as easy as picking daisies.
Most of my brides are picking a big vibrant, bold color. And they’re doing a little bit more mix-and-match of their bridesmaids dresses, so you can have a different color palette in your bouquets because the bridesmaids dresses aren’t all matchy-matchy in one color. Other florals trending right now are a lot of spray-painted flowers, dried flowers and bleached flowers. People are also starting to stray away from doing flower arrangements on every table at a venue and making one huge focal piece – maybe it’s in the center of the dance floor, maybe it’s a really cool floral arrangement above a bar, maybe it’s a hanging bridge over a head table. By having that one huge statement piece, it’s a showcase for photographs and it adds a wow factor.
Brandon Sitler, owner and designer, Urban Orchid
I think the biggest misconception is that flowers are inexpensive and easy. There is a lot more to wedding flowers than the flowers themselves, so try not to get sticker shock because the cost will include labor and set up as well. All flowers are specially ordered, hand sorted and processed properly to ensure that everything looks beautiful. Florists then create custom, one-of-a-kind designs personally for each wedding. Generally, I think a lot of people are unaware of the amount of time and work that actually goes into designing and setting up wedding flowers – they aren’t just thrown together. Remember, you get what you pay for, so your expectations should be reasonable for the work being provided and quoted. Wedding designs can be very labor intensive and the right florist will go the extra mile to make sure that everything is set up to be the way the bride and groom want it.
Carrie Paradise, co-owner and head designer, Paradise Flower Market
My first piece of advice is to always make sure you have your bridesmaids dresses before finding a florist. It sounds silly, but I’ve seen so many times where brides come in without those dresses, and they pick a completely different color or shade than we had talked about and the whole wedding changes. After that, I would say the best thing is to pick a florist who is going to connect with you. Make sure you trust your florist, and open communication with them is big because they’re working with perishable products. Not everything can come in the way people see it on a magazine or on Pinterest. As long as you’re open with your florist and your florist is open with you, I think that’s the biggest thing to make sure you’re happy.
Kara Prebish, florist, fresh buyer and designer, Breezewood Gardens & Gifts
