Alternative Floral Finishes

Your wedding day is the perfect time and place to show off your personal style. Vintage, rustic, romantic, traditional, you can style every detail of your wedding your way.

One area where personal style has seemingly been somewhat limited is with flower arrangements. You’ve got your bouquet, boutonnieres, and centerpieces, right? There are only so many varieties of flowers and arrangements, and they can sometimes tend to look all alike, am I right? Well, if you have been yearning for something different in the flower department you are going to love these on-trend alternative floral finishes for all weddings, from vintage weddings to modern soirees.

Suspended Flowers or Greenery

Instead of having big floral centerpieces taking up space and blocking conversation at your reception table, why not suspend greenery or floral arrangements above the table. This creates a romantic and whimsical feel in addition to being super practical. If you chose a reception venue with rafters such as our unique reception hall specially designed and built to host the perfect wedding reception, then suspended flowers are the perfect idea for you!

Incorporate some vintage style with ornate wire hanging baskets, or a metal birdcage stuffed with your favorite blossom or greenery.  Wrap rafters with holly or ivy with splashes of bright berries interwoven for a festive way to decorate for a Christmastime wedding!

Edible Flowers

Decorations that you can eat! Can it get more fun than that? Edible flowers on reception food and in reception and cocktail hour drinks are very in fashion and couldn’t be more delicious.

Consider candying some blooms and adding them to the top of your cake or on the side of each plate as a delicious and beautiful garnish. Or serve bubbly champagne with hibiscus plopped into the bottom of the glass where it will gently and beautifully unfurl or serve a signature cocktail with borage blossoms, which taste like cucumber, perched on the side. Borage blossoms are also delicious added to lemonade and floating in iced water as well as an alternative to alcoholic drinks.

You don’t have to stop at drinks and desserts, you can add edible Nasturtiums which have a peppery taste to sushi or a salad and top flatbread or pasta with bright yellowy orange zucchini blossoms. Zucchini blossoms are also amazing when stuffed with cream cheese, breaded, and fried. Mmmm, talk about the perfect southern fried treat!

For more edible flower ideas and a complete guide from picking to prepping, check out this article by Southern Living.

Single Stems

If you want to make a big, bold statement, try using a single stem in the place of an arrangement of flowers. A great flower for this is a protea, which is a family of flowers, also sometimes called a sunbush, which is my personal favorite name for it. This family of flowers are really fun and bold and come in an array of vibrant colors from the red and orange Scarlet Ribbon to the bright yellow High Gold. This article from Sunset.com has a whole array of protea blossoms that are larger than life for you to choose from if you love this idea.

If protea blossoms are a bit too bold and exotic, you might want to consider the sunflower for your single blossom look. Sunflowers are a great choice for fall and are a fun and fresh look for a rustic farm wedding.

Forgo Flowers

Sometimes the best way to do a different take on flowers is to forgo the flowers completely! There are a bunch of fun and beautiful alternatives to the traditional floral bouquet such as a bouquet made entirely of vintage brooches, origami bouquets, cloth floral bouquets, or button bouquets to name just a few.

For centerpieces, Pinterest has some pretty amazing ideas using only vegetables that are as intriguing and beautiful as they are tasty and quirky. Some ideas include nestling a candle into an artichoke, wrapping tall, chunky candles with fresh asparagus, or filling a clear vase with root vegetables like carrots, beets, and a green onion or too with the leafy parts spilling over the top. We think that if you served fresh chicken soup for your soup course this would be particularly delightful.

Vintage items like books, trunks, birdcages, old sheet music, old mailboxes, and almost anything you can image also make amazing centerpiece items and you don’t have to involve plants or flowers at all.

These alternative floral finishes are fun and quirky and will add a fresh floral flavor to any wedding and reception. Additionally, these alternatives to traditional floral arrangements are good options for the upcoming fall and winter wedding season.

Enjoy these fresh alternatives to traditional floral arrangements, and happy wedding planning!