Truly White Flowers for Your Wedding

All white wedding flowers… an elegant and timeless choice for brides and grooms and a floral style that has persisted for centuries.

Earlier this Spring, I shared details about Queen Victoria’s bouquet of all white flowers, a tradition among the royal family that has transcended centuries culminating with Meghan Markle’s gorgeous bouquet in May.

The beauty and romance of white flowers is playing out in venues all over Northern Virginia and Washington DC this year. 

We have already met with many wedding couples planning to use white florals well into 2019 and 2020.

 

There are some things to consider if you are planning to work with truly white flowers and those considerations will have a lot to do with the flowers that you choose. Use this blog as a guide to selecting your white flowers.

The distinction between white and ivory flowers

We can achieve pure white flowers for your wedding but we will need to be very selective.

Flowers like Lisianthus, Stock, Tulips, Orchids and Anenomes are “go to” flowers for us that have a cooler shade. They are wonderful varieties to work with, especially in your bouquets. 

The team at J. Morris Flowers has worked very closely with our wholesalers to choose varieties of Roses and Spray Roses that are more predictably white.

This season we have a Standard Rose called Tibet and a Garden Rose called Princess Miyuki that are both showing a lovely cooler shade. 

In addition, Sweet Pea is pure white and Peony, Dahlia and Ranunculus have white varieties.

Next we will talk about your design.

We can use one single variety of flower like white Garden Roses or Peonies if you like the idea of that rounder, tighter bouquet. (I think of this as a more glamorous or luxurious design style.) Or, we can use a selection of white floral varieties and create the equally popular, looser, less structured bouquet. (This design style achieves more contrast and texture as we use florals in different shapes and sizes and greens that create space between the flowers.)

Both themes will continue as we plan for the florals and decor for the rest of your wedding.

We prepared a beautiful wedding at Landsdowne Resort and Spa a few weeks ago that leaned heavily on white orchids for the ceremony and reception flowers.

In this case, the bride carried a beautiful bouquet that featured Garden Roses and Peony with ample greens.

Quite a few wedding couples come to us looking for a combination of white and ivory flowers. This duo is very classic looking but also timeless and romantic.

Cream or ivory flowers work well for the bride who is wearing a warmer white or ivory dress or the groom who has selected an off-white shirt.

Additionally, when we use white and ivory flowers together, we achieve a little more color contrast making each individual bloom a little more noticeable. 

Many standard Roses, Garden Roses and Spray Roses have a beautiful ivory hue. 

There are lots of traditional flowers that tend to look creamy white or ivory, flowers we would lean away from for your all white bouquet.

Greenery and white flowers

Greenery adds a coolness to a white only bouquet that helps to achieve that “truly white” look. Silver dollar Eucalyptus with it’s hint of blue and gray is a nice cool temperature. Dusty Miller, with it’s soft silvery leaf, has the same impact. Ruscus, Lemon Leaf (Salal) and Nandina are a shown in many of the photos in this blog and are perfect for breaking up the spaces between white flowers.

If you are really hoping for truly white flowers, make sure you stress that with your floral designer. It may mean that you will want to choose some of the flowers mentioned here and ask for advice about some of the Roses that are available during your wedding season.