How to Achieve the Look of a Garden Wedding

The theme that mimics the look of spring.

Discover recommendations for how to create the look of a growing garden at your wedding with bunches of varietal blooms, hearty textures, and pops of color.

By Amy Child Marella of The Hidden Garden

Photo: Samuel Lippke Studios

There are many reasons why springtime is such a popular season for weddings, the main one being the flowers. As a florist, I love spring because Mother Nature outdoes herself this time of year with the largest, most beautiful selection of blooms imaginable. With so much color and variety available, you can go wild with your wedding flowers without doing the same with your spending. Since there are so many choices, I recommend designing your floral décor to look like a growing garden with bunches of varietal blooms, hearty textures, and popping color. 

Wedding Ceremony Style

Create an appealing ceremony aisle that welcomes guests and lets them know they’ve just walked into someplace very special. One idea is to line the pathway with garden boxes filled with flowering plants; hydrangea and tulips are great choices, as they can be replanted after the big day. Arrangements that appear to look like flowering plants also work well. Consider lilac (which smells amazing) and viburnum. These two blooms are gorgeous and can be grouped together to look like plants, or spread throughout the garden box for a wildflower effect. What’s great about this concept is that the garden boxes can be reused at your reception as stage décor. This is a great money saver and eco-friendly as well. 

The perfect ceremonial structure for this theme is one with flowers draped all around it so it appears as if it’s “growing” in the garden. Group all your flower varieties together on the structure and use vines and curly willow to create an arbor as a natural base. Then, add groupings of beautiful spring flowers in sections for a wild, eye-catching focal point. Definitely take advantage of the season’s treasures, lilac and viburnum!

Wedding Party Flowers

Your blooms for the wedding party should be an extension of the beautiful growing garden. To do this, commission bouquets that are plentiful and eye catching. Give each bridesmaid a massive bouquet filled with a different variety of spring flower. Lined up in a row, the beauty of each will stand out. Total balance can be achieved by coordinating each groomsmen’s boutonniere to match the floral type of his counterpart’s bouquet. To make a dramatic statement, group all the varieties used in the wedding-party florals into one large arrangement for the bridal bouquet. You can have it overflowing with color, or use white versions of each variety for an all-white bouquet!

Wedding Reception Décor

Once you’ve wowed your friends and family members with a ceremonial garden, you can use your reception flowers to impress them with a unique combination of texture, color, variety, and nature. A seating-card table can be replaced with a tree adorned with antique birdcages with clusters of flowers throughout. This surprising welcome can then lead guests to a cocktail reception with an outdoorsy feeling, designed like a garden with small cages, bunches of flowers, and bird baths with floating gardenias.

For your reception area, introduce new, visually stunning blossoms such as cherry blossoms, dogwood blooms, and quince in tall vases. A mono-botanical look can be created by surrounding the base of the vases with small vessels filled with one spring floral variety per table. You can even skip glass vases and use antique containers such as watering cans with a patina look. Your stage décor will already be covered thanks to the reusable garden boxes from your ceremony, so all you’ll need next is a cake setting.

The cake table is going to be a focal point and will be seen over and over in photos and video, so why not go with a garden theme here as well? Cover the entire table top with flower heads and add clear glass a few inches over the flowers to create a beautiful floral tablescape – your cake will look like it’s suspended above flowers!

Back-Up Plan

Not having a spring wedding? Well, lucky for you, it’s possible to have a spring fling year-round with some springtime look-a-likes! Love lilac? Choose stock. Envisioning viburnum? Use mini hydrangea. Curly willow branches with green cymbidium orchids attached make a great double for dogwood, and ranunculus can be replaced with small garden spray roses. Finally, the near-perfect imposter for peonies is the garden rose. With so many ways to reproduce the look of a gorgeous growing garden, you can be wild about spring anytime of year.

Opening photo by Samuel Lippke Studios; Floral Design by The Hidden Garden; Planning and Design by Geller Events. See the full real wedding here: ”Tuscany Meets Rustic California” Outdoor Wedding Under the Stars