Florist Diaries: A Colorful Summer Wedding Full of Garden Blooms

The palette was fun, bright, and summery!

There are some weddings that are just really fun to design, and this was one of them!

The color palette was full of orange, red, blue, yellow, blush, and deep, moody tones. There was a lot of variety in the flowers, and I had plenty of room to play with color and texture throughout the day.

I also got to use quite a few flowers from my own garden, which is always a fun part of my wedding work. Being able to grow flowers specifically with my designs in mind has become such a rewarding part of what I do, and I love finding little places to tuck them into a wedding.

Of course, with any wedding production, there were a few unexpected flower substitutions, some flowers that needed a little extra attention, and a couple of things I learned along the way. So let's get into it.

The color palette

I knew I wanted orange to have a strong presence, so I ordered some beautiful orange zinnias from Laurel's Flowers. They ended up being exactly the pop of orange I was looking for. I had also originally ordered red Nina roses, but was sent Orange Crush instead. Rather than trying to work around it, I decided to bring the red in through another flower and picked up some beautiful red dahlias from Twin Cities Flower Exhange. They gave me the deeper red I wanted while adding a little more texture to the designs.

The zinnias are also having a very good year in my garden, so I was able to use quite a few of them throughout the wedding. I love when the flowers I'm growing can make their way into my wedding work, especially when they're right at home in the color palette.

Yellow was actually a last-minute addition to the palette, but I'm really glad I added it. With all of the deeper reds, blues, oranges, and blush tones, that little bit of yellow gave the overall design some brightness and kept everything from feeling too heavy.

Our color palette inspiration from the initial design deck.

A garden-inspired bridal bouquet

The bridal bouquet was one of my favorite things to make for this wedding.

I had originally planned on using a little less blue delphinium, but once I started putting the bouquet together, I really liked what the extra delphinium was doing. It gave the bouquet a beautiful shape and added some height and movement.

I was also able to incorporate some of my homegrown zinnias, lisianthus, and cosmos, which worked really nicely with the other flowers.

The result was colorful and garden-inspired without feeling overly structured. I wanted it to feel like a collection of flowers that naturally belonged together, rather than every stem being placed with the exact same amount of precision.

The beautiful bride, Jennie, with her lovely garden-inspired bouquet.

Designing the meadow pieces

The ceremony meadow pieces were a really fun opportunity to play with the color palette on a larger scale.

I used baptisia throughout the meadow, along with a mix of the other flowers from the palette. I also incorporated some color blocking, which helped create more definition within the arrangements while still keeping the overall look loose and natural.

If I were designing this same concept again, I would actually push that idea even further. I think there is something really beautiful about letting two or three flower varieties take up a little more visual space within each section of a meadow, rather than having every flower variety distributed evenly throughout the piece.

The key is making sure those varieties still blend together well. I don't want the color blocking to feel too rigid. I want it to feel intentional while still having that natural, garden-inspired quality.

The combination of echinacea, blush zinnia, and dark smokebush was especially beautiful, and the yellow blooms helped pull some of those brighter colors throughout the installation.

An artful floral meadow at the church ceremony paired with the perfect backdrop.

All of the little floral details

There were a lot of different floral elements throughout this wedding, and I loved getting to carry the color palette through each one in a slightly different way.

For the dainty dish centerpieces, I brought in some really beautiful red bee balm that I found at Twin Cities Floral Exchange. I paired that with more of my homegrown zinnias, phlox, lisianthus, Queen Anne's lace, cosmos, and callas.

The Wink Allure garden spray roses were another favorite. They were such a great addition to the centerpieces and fit right into that loose, garden-inspired look.

I also special ordered clematis from Holex. When it arrived, it looked pretty sad, but after a little hot water and flower food, it perked right up and was ready to use.

The overall effect of the centerpieces was colorful without everything feeling exactly the same. I like when reception flowers have some variation from table to table while still feeling like they belong to the same wedding.

The centerpieces paired with our pleated votive candles was the perfect, dainty centerpiece for smaller tables.

Repurposing the ceremony flowers

We were also able to repurpose the meadow pieces from the ceremony at the reception, which is always something I love doing when the logistics allow for it.

The bud vases that had been used for the cake reception for the congregation were also brought into the reception space.

Repurposing flowers gives them another opportunity to be enjoyed throughout the wedding day, and in this case it helped carry the floral design from the ceremony into the reception without having to start completely over.

We repurposed the ceremony floral meadow into a sweetheart table asymmetric accent.

Looking back

This wedding had so many of the things I love about floral design: lots of color, seasonal flowers, garden-grown blooms, interesting textures, and enough flexibility to let the flowers guide the design a little bit.

I especially loved being able to combine my own zinnias with flowers from Laurel's Flowers, TCFE, Holex, Len Busch Roses, and other floral sources. It made the designs feel layered and personal, and there were so many different flowers to work with.

I also really enjoyed seeing how the color palette changed as the designs came together. The orange zinnias, unexpected red dahlias, blue delphinium, yellow accents, blush zinnias, echinacea, and dark smokebush all brought something different to the table.

That's one of my favorite parts of being a Minnesota wedding florist. I can have a pretty specific idea when I start designing, but the flowers themselves always have a say in how the final work comes together.

And sometimes the best parts are the ones you didn't originally plan for.