Wedding Flower Trends - How to combine Dried and Fresh Flowers

A statement flower bomb I designed for The Millennium Galleries in Sheffield - Photographer Dainty UK

Hello everyone, I’m so happy to bring you a slimmed-down version of a guest blog post I wrote for Boho Weddings Blog as part of her ‘Ask the Experts’ feature talking about this year’s wedding flower trends, and specifically fresh and dried wedding flowers.

It was so lovely to be back working with Kelly, and huge thanks to her as always, for entrusting me with her wonderful blog too.  It’s awesome to be talking about wedding flower trends, after what’s seemed like a really awful time away from doing the thing I love most – designing beautiful wedding flowers,  rocking up on your wedding day with your bridal flowers, and transforming your wedding venue into an otherworldly wonderland.

Happily, things are opening up, I’ve designed lots of brides bouquets, lots of buttonholes, and lots and lots of church and ceremony wedding flowers over the past month and have quite a few more in the pipeline.  Once we hit July, it’s all hands on deck for our Sheffield wedding flowers until the end of the year, so fingers crossed there’ll be lots more inspiration coming your way over the next few months. 

So, today I wanted to talk about the explosion of popularity in dried flowers during lockdown, and how to incorporate them into your wedding flowers. Dried flowers can be absolutely gorgeous in terms of colour and texture, but might just leave you hankering for the scent, vibrancy, and delicate beauty of fresh blooms and seasonal flowers.  Fear not, because combining both fresh and dried for wedding flowers Sheffield is one of my favourite trends at the moment and I’m here to bring you lots of ideas, hints, and tips, and absolutely bags of gorgeous inspiration! 

Dried bunnies tails, beech leaves and birch twigs combined with cherry blossom, poppies and carnations make a perfect centrepiece for long refectory tables at the Millennium Galleries, Sheffield for a contemporary, urban wedding

Photographer Dainty UK

 Wedding Bouquets

Love it or leave it, pampas is most decidedly here as a major trend at the moment.  Full of texture, it works brilliantly in oversized, unstructured, asymmetric bouquets for brides or bridesmaids, adding volume and drama too.

There’s also a slightly less full version of pampas grass available nowadays in a myriad of different colours to really tie into your colour scheme, so if you love the idea of dried and fresh but still want that extra pop of colour, this might just be the design style for you.

A wild, unstructured, wedding bouquet featuring Yorkshire grown blooms, pampas, and dried grasses Photographer Tim Dunk 

I designed this bridal bouquet to feature velvety roses, soft lisianthus and dried protea with wild twigs and fluffy pampas to create maximum impact. Photography by Rosie Kelly

Wedding Flowers - Installations & Venue Design

I’ve got to be honest, I do so love designing large-scale installations for venues.  When thinking about your budget, I’d really recommend one or two statement pieces, they look absolutely brilliant on your photos and really add a wow factor to any styling too, whether you’re going rustic or uber-cool.

I particularly love the versatility of large scale designs using dried and fresh flowers – they work really well to frame you both during your ceremony and then, of course, can be moved and used together or singly to add focus to a top table in a say barn, warehouse or even an ultra-modern gallery and then moved to welcome guests at the entrance of say, a marquee or tipi.

A flower cloud of dried materials adds a huge amount of impact and is beautifully mirrored by the floor arrangements full of pampas and soft peachy blooms. Photography by Rosie Kelly

Large-scale floor level designs are wonderful for framing you during your ceremony - Photographer Dainty UK

If your venue has a super high ceiling, but you want to make it feel a little cozier for your guests then, think about hanging designs, they won’t spoil the grandeur of the architecture around you, but they will create a focal point.

A barn wedding ceremony at The Normans, York. I designed a rustic tree branch filled with flowers, foliage, and dried materials -Photography Nicola Thompson Photography

The natural, woodland, bringing the outside in vibe works so well with the natural stone walls and twinkly backdrop

Photography Nicola Thompson Photography

So, as always, I hope this post all about wedding flower trends has inspired you to think about combining gorgeous delicate fresh blooms with textural dried materials in your own way.  It's such a pleasure to pass on inspiration and guide you through your wedding choices, drawing on my experience of designing wedding flowers at so many beautiful wedding venues.

 If you have any questions or want some specific advice on all things flowery, then do leave a comment at the bottom of this post

Tx