[kupo808]

Hello!

My wedding colors are cranberry and gray. How can I incorporate those two colors together for the bridal bouquet. Also, my bridesmaids dresses are strapless cranberry chiffon. I have heard that their bouquets should be different then mine. What other colors go well? Does red work?

Thank you!!

[Angie Zimmerman]

Hi Kupo808,

Your bouquet should always be more "special" than the bridesmaids bouquets, whether that be distinguished by size or style is up to you. Let's assume you are doing hand-tied bouquets, yours would be bigger than the bridesmaids, but could contain the exact same flowers. Or, yours could be different, you could carry an all red/burgundy/cranberry bouquet and the bridesmaid could carry all white bouquets with touches of cranberry incorporated into the bouquets.

The only thing I would caution you about is using tone on tone...meaning using cranberry flowers against cranberry dresses, because unless the shades are drastically different, you won't be able to distinguish the flowers from the dress, they will just blend into each other.

There are so many dark red flowers including roses, alstromeria, carnations, gerbera daisies, scabiosa, tulips, mini callas, yarrow, amaranthus, even peony. There are a few silver foliages that could work as well, lamb's ear, eucalyptus and dusty miller come to mind. You could wrap the bouquet stems with silver/gray ribbon.

You can mix other colors as well, depending upon the time of year of your wedding you could mix oranges, yellows and dark reds for a FALL timeline, or pink, white and burgundy, green and burgundy if close to Christmas...it really boils down to personal taste and what is pleasing to YOU.

If it were me, I would use dark/hot pink flowers with gray accents.

Hope this help!

[Russ on Flowers]

Hello Kupo808-
Great question. Cranberry is a great color and can be set as primary color in your bouquet by using many different flowers. Cranberry is a dark shade of red which in turn gives us a large inventory to chose from. Take for instance, Mini callas, roses, spray roses, carnations, a few varieties of orchids, dahlias, ranunculus, just to name a few.

Now let talk grey, as you may know, there are no grey flowers so we are left to resort to our design mentality which brings us to mechanics. Mechanics are defined as, in general terms, what finishes a design and what doesn’t. If it is grey we seek, grey is what you will get. We need to think out of the box a little and use ribbon to accent or use grey floral paint to accent some of the foliage, let’s not forget that silver accents such as gems or wire can also be viewed as grey. That being said, gems with silver/grey accents can be added through interior of your bouquet as well as wire. Both Gems and wire have become vastly popular mechanics used in the design of bouquets around the world.

Cranberry Chiffon sounds gorgeous. It is customary that the brides bouquet is the primary focal point to the wedding, as it should be. However, this does not mean that the bridesmaids bouquet should not match. It can match but suggested be smaller. An alternative option might be to use different varieties of the same color flower but again keep the design somewhat smaller. Red roses will work fine and there are deep burgundy roses available, that might be a consideration In both cases you will accomplish the design element needed to achieve your goals.

In closing, you might consider two options of variance, the bridal bouquets is designed with one primary flower with silver mechanics throughout and the bridesmaids bouquet is designed with an assortment of different flower, cranberry or mixed, small in scale, with grey mechanics throughout. Or design the bridal bouquet with an assortment of different cranberry colored flowers with gray mechanics and design the bridesmaid bouquets with a single primary flower with grey mechanics. Either way, you will achieve your end goal.

Thank you for your inquiry.

Russ

[kupo808]

Thank you to both of you!

Your ideas have proved invaluable when I spoke with different florists. And they all said that I have good taste!

Have a wonderful day!!