The Language of Flowers for the Modern Bride: Telling your love story with flowers ...

By Linda Lininger

The Language of Flowers for the Modern Bride provides a different way of looking at the flowers a bride chooses for her wedding. Telling a couple's love story using flowers and their meanings can bring a beautiful dimension to an important day. This book not only describes the traditional (Victorian) meaning for each flower but also describes the legends and lore surrounding these meanings.

On the front cover is a lavender rose and white freesia bridal bouquet meaning precious love, lasting friendship, and thoughtfulness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9798888514351

Book preview

Chapter 1

Welcome to the Language of Flowers for the Modern Bride

One of important things you will need to decide upon as you plan your wedding is what flowers you will carry down the aisle. The flowers you choose for your wedding help set the tone and fine tune the style of your special day. You may choose a dress and a location and follow up on thousands of details, but your flowers are one of the most personal of all your decisions.

Flower symbolism has been around for a very long time. Originating in Asia and the Middle East where the lotus flower was considered sacred, and bamboo was incorporated into artwork as a symbol of longevity. Floral symbolism has appealed to people of all walks of life. The language of flowers was brought to England by Lady Montague, Mary Wortley, whose husband was ambassador to Turkey in the early eighteenth century. Lady Montague became fascinated by the local customs of the Turks when it came to the giving and receiving of messages in flowers.

During the Victorian era, roughly the time of the reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1901, flowers were used as a means of sending messages to express feelings, which otherwise could not be spoken. In the Victorian era, the giver would handpick flowers to be included in the message of the blossoms. The receiver would examine each stem to determine what the giver’s message was and what that message meant.

This language of flowers offers you, the modern bride, the opportunity to use flowers in a beautiful and meaningful way. You can use the voice of each flower you select to resonate deeply into the feelings and sentiments that each flower represents.

This book is meant as a guide for you to consult as you select and design the form, style, and messages contained in your flowers. I hope to help you create the bouquets, boutonnieres, and accent pieces that make your wedding day perfect.

Where it all began, Queen Victoria

The romantic figure of Queen Victoria of England is generally attributed to beginning the white wedding tradition. At the age of eighteen, Her Majesty Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom wed (her cousin), His Royal Highness Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha on February 10, 1840. She wore a white gown made completely from materials produced in the United Kingdom. In particular, the lace used in her veil and the flounce of her gown were created from a design by William Dyce at the Government School of Design in London. It took over six months for more than one hundred lace makers to produce the lace, and the pattern was promptly destroyed so it could never be recreated.

Before Victoria introduced the white gown to the wedding scene, royals usually wore gowns of gold or silver to represent their status and station. Ordinary women (commoners) usually wore their best dress on the occasion of their marriage. Victoria’s off-the-shoulder gown was simple and elegant and white.

In her hair, the young queen wore a wreath of orange blossoms, and she carried a small posy of snowdrops purportedly the groom’s favorite flowers and a sprig of myrtle. A posy is a small loosely arranged bouquet.

Interestingly, a sprig of myrtle is a tradition among British royal brides, and it is said that they clip this sprig from the bush grown from a cutting brought to England by Prince Albert from Coburg.

And the traditions continue, Queen Mary

In 1893, Queen Mary’s bridal bouquet comprised a wide range of white flowers. Not only did she carry the new white carnation aptly called the bride, but she also held white orchids, lilies of the valley, orange blossoms, and House of York roses.

Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother

The well-loved mother of the present-day Queen Elizabeth, entered her marriage to Prince Albert, the Duke of York (later King George VI) as the Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon of Scotland. In her bouquet, she carried roses and heather, symbolizing the union of England and Scotland.

Queen Elizabeth II

When the then Princess Elizabeth wed Prince Philip, she carried a bouquet of three types of British orchids and the traditional sprig of myrtle.

Princess Ann

The royal princess held a bouquet of while roses, lily of the valley, and the sprig of myrtle from the Queen Victoria’s myrtle bush and a sprig of white heather for good luck.

Princess Diana

The lavish bridal bouquet carried by the then Lady Diana of Spencer on the occasion of her marriage to the Crown Prince Charles was a gift from the Worshipful Company of Gardeners.

This bouquet was designed to be a bit larger than the traditional petite bouquets in that the designers of the gown didn’t want the bouquet to be dwarfed by the sizable bellows of fabric of the gown itself.

Sara Ferguson

In 1986, Sara Ferguson (Fergie) wore a wreath of gardenias (Prince Edwards’s favorite flower) in her hair during the ceremony, which she later traded for a diamond tiara. Her bouquet was a shaped arrangement of lilies, yellow roses, gardenias, lily of the valley, and that sprig of myrtle.

Kate Middleton

The language of flowers was