Sentimental Wedding Flowers: Designed with Love

Image by Emmylou Kelly: Wedding Floral Backdrop for a beautiful spring marquee wedding.

My couples know that wedding flowers are so much more than just bouquets and blooms - they are  living, artistic representations of your roots and can have deep sentimental significance. Creating florals with meaning is one of the things that brings me the most joy, so if you’re looking for ways to have your very own sentimental wedding flowers you’ve come to the right place. Get inspired and find out how we can honour lost loved ones, give a nod to different cultures and countries and invoke the hidden meanings behind different blooms on your wedding day.

Giving specific personal meaning to your flowers is something that is deeply ingrained in my business - and that includes the name itself. The dittany plant is known for its supposed healing properties, which speaks to my background in therapy and the way I find creativity itself so restorative. For all you Potter fans out there, you may know that essence of dittany is named as a healing potion in the books! The second half of the name ‘entwined’ links back to my childhood, and my nana’s magical garden with its cascading willow tree, secret passages and abundant rose bushes. Like something out of a fairytale, it and she encouraged and inspired my creative side, and honouring her with a little nod in my business name felt like the perfect thank you.

With loved ones in mind, we’ll start with our first way to create sentimental wedding flowers…

Image by Emma Ryan Photographer: Church wedding ceremony in North Yorkshire. Harmonising modern floral design with traditional architecture.

Sentimental Wedding Flowers: Honouring Loved Ones

My couples often come to me asking about different ways we can honour loved ones that are no longer with us, or specific requests from friends and family. There are so many ways your floral artwork can reflect the essence of your nearest and dearest, and I hope you’ll find touching inspiration from some of these stories about my past couples.

For one of my previous brides we used a flurry of sweet peas throughout her bouquet, the urns surrounding them as they said their vows, and on their dinner tables. There was a special connection with sweet peas and the bride’s late nana, as a specific variety of sweet pea had the same name as her. The scent and visual presence of the blooms in significant moments throughout the day helped the bride feel connected to her nana throughout. These kinds of immersive experiences are one of the most emotive ways to create sentimental wedding flowers.

On another occasion I helped my bride make her father, who had passed away and so was unable to give her away, a part of her journey down the aisle. Her bouquet of white roses included one stem that was loosely tied in with a silk ribbon, appearing as part of the creamy, silken whole. As she reached the altar she was able to remove the single rose and lay it down for her father as a way to honour him in that important moment. This, combined with adding her mum’s wedding rings to the bouquet, made for a very beautiful and teary bouquet handover on the morning of the wedding.

Sometimes my couples want to include flowers on specific requests from family members, such as one bride who asked me to add forget me nots grown by a relative to her bouquet. One mother of the bride wanted to include some of the blooms she had worn in her own floral crown on her wedding day in her daughter’s bouquet, but the bride asked that they weren’t too prominent. I individually wired some of the delicate flowers from the crown into the bouquet in a subtle way, and the pure joy on her face was wonderful to see.

Image by Pear & Bear Photography: Bridal Bouquet for a beautiful summer wedding including roses, orchids and pampas grass.

Sentimental Wedding Flowers: Cultures and Countries Combined

Another popular use for sentimental wedding flowers is to merge their different cultures or make reference to specific countries. 

In the past I have incorporated some of my couples’ own vases into their designs, used hanging Chinese lanterns or particular patterns, colours and textures to help tell their individual cultural stories. One of my couples had a celebrant ceremony followed by a Korean tea ceremony, and came to me wanting to create two different set ups that were distinct but felt cohesive. Flowers are truly one of the best ways to weave a wonderland of artistic structure that really represents your own journey, verdant in their versatility and with the extraordinary ability to transform a space.

Image by Victoria Baker Weddings: Korean tea ceremony floral design set up.

Sometimes couples want sentimental wedding flowers that simply represent their roots, for example white roses for Yorkshire and thistles for Scotland. Combining them into one beautiful design is where the real magic of your union comes alive. 

Of all the meaningful events through a lifetime, weddings and funerals are perhaps the most significant and require the same level of care, attention to detail and personal touch. I mention funerals only to give an example of another way it is possible to entwine your home turf with an important moment, as I did for a beautiful, sentimental brief in the Scottish Hebrides. The community there was involved with growing corn and hay, so the brief for the funeral flowers was based around recreating the look and feel of that landscape. I made a living wreath to be laid on her grave, using the sweetest spring bulbs and grasses, and several meadows of hay, heather, barley, oats and thistles - this way, the coffin was surrounded by the magnificent Scottish Highlands on her final journey back home.

Over a year later I’m still in touch with this lovely lady’s daughter, and the living wreath has recently bloomed again! They have now turned their family home into a beautiful event space on the island, using the meadows we created as decor. Their gratitude at being able to give such a touching send off and keep the treasured arrangements afterward is testament to the enduring sentimentality of flowers.

Whatever the occasion, enhancing some of the most special moments in people’s lives is one of the most magical things it’s possible to do with flowers.

Image by Emma Ryan Photographer: Floral installation on the beautiful staircase at Thicket Priory.

Sentimental Wedding Flowers: Representations

Sometimes my couples come to me wanting sentimental wedding flowers or deeper meaning, but are struggling to find a connection to something. In these cases we’ll spend time talking around different types of flowers and what they mean (I have a lovely little book about this!) until something resonates. Good examples for weddings are freesias, which represent unconditional love, and different colours of roses with different connotations. 

Unless this is important to my couple I won’t try to add meaning where there is none, since the creation of your wedding flowers is a deeply personal journey. It culminates in a day immersed in the different scents, sights and styling that we have chosen to inject you into every element.

Image Monkeymole Photography: Wedding couple surrounded by floral meadow of white flowers and lush foliage at Oakwood at Ryther.

Beyond The Wedding

For me, the sentimental value of flowers extends beyond the wedding day itself. The design lives on in your images and in the seasonal moments that return every year as a reminder, but also in what you choose to do with your florals afterwards. 

I always have a conversation with my couples at their ‘final details’ meeting to find out what they want to do with the flowers after the wedding - as standard I will either bunch up the flowers to be given away to guests, or let them choose to donate them to a charity, hospice, care home etc. that has meaning for them. Many of my brides also choose to preserve their bouquets, which is something I will be adding to my offering in the future.

Something that often surprises my couples is how long the flowers last after the wedding day, however. Proper conditioning of the blooms pre-wedding, along with the way I construct the installations and arrangements, means they survive well past the day itself. I have had couples tell me their flowers lasted 4 weeks beyond the wedding! Taking these extra steps to ensure the longevity of your carefully crafted, sentimental wedding flowers is a part of the process I hold very dear.

If you’ve seen something you like or want to explore other ways to add a sentimental touch to your wedding flowers, I can’t wait to hear from you. Together we’ll design a creative, cohesive design that delivers on vision, style and sentiment. Get in touch to get started. 

“Giving specific personal meaning to your flowers is something that is deeply ingrained in my business and that includes the name itself”

— Nicola Robson Owner and founder of Dittany Entwined

‘The Proposal of Dreams’ by Your Yorkshire Wedding Florist

When you choose me as your Yorkshire wedding florist, you’ll quickly discover that ‘bespoke’ blooms into a whole new meaning with Dittany Entwined. It all begins with our consultation and what has fondly been called The Proposal of Dreams, a highly detailed and immersive vision of how your wedding florals will look that allows you to truly connect with your design. Curating sculptural floral art for you is my pleasure, and these important first stages allow you to share in the excitement and joy of what will blossom into life on your wedding day.

Married Couple. Bride holding all white bouquet full of hydrangea, roses and spring flowers. Image by Love Francesca Photography

I take the personalisation of your bespoke wedding flowers very seriously and, after the initial contact stage and confirmation that I am available on your wedding date, we’ll start on the process of foraging for inspiration. There is a fee for our consultation (this serves as your deposit if you go ahead and book) because it really goes deeper than the surface, and far beyond just finding images on Pinterest to adapt. We’ll spend an hour and a half together and really explore who you are as a couple, the things you love and what’s important to you. Everything matters; your favourite moments together; your love for interior design and art; where you’re heading for your honeymoon, and anything else that shows me your style.

Digital drawing of a spring bridal bouquet. Drawn,designed and painted by lead floral designer Nicola Robson of Dittany Entwined floral design

One of the most important elements for me as your Yorkshire wedding florist is connection, and getting to the heart of who you really are. It’s how I ensure your bespoke floral design grows into something that just drips with your personality, and feels like it could only ever be yours.

After our call I’ll begin work on your Proposal of Dreams. The proposal is specifically designed to be as detailed and visual as possible, and allow you to imagine exactly how things will look on your wedding day. Attention to detail is key, and your proposal is as true to reality and transparent as possible. I will always obtain measurements from your wedding venue and ascertain what can be achieved in your spaces, meaning that the sketches, images and pricing breakdown are highly accurate. 

Images of dittany entwined proposals. Our wedding flower proposals our able to be viewed on desk tops, laptops, tablets and smart phones. They are also stored on your own personal portal on our website.

The great beauty of these true-to-life proposals is that you can immerse yourself in how your bespoke florals will look and feel on the day, and build excitement for the big reveal. Inclusions such as hand painted and digital visual designs, details about focal flower choices and consideration of the sensory experience really elevate this stage of the process. No two proposals are ever the same, simply because no two couples are. 

Just as you try on your wedding dress, taste your menu and see samples of your stationery ahead of the big day, so too should you be able to see your bespoke florals come to life before your wedding. This way, the only surprise on the big day will be just how playfully impactful, delicately fragrant and luxuriously curated your blooms are. 

If you’re feeling the excitement flourishing and want to confirm that I’m the right Yorkshire wedding florist for you, contact me through this form to plant the first seed. We’ll start with that all-important connection, and discover the power of flowers together.

“Create your own visual style… let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.” – Orson Welles”