Courtesy of Marta Locklear
Next to the bride’s wedding dress, flowers are one of the most photographed details of the big day—and for good reason: lush centerpieces are a table setting’s trump card, bouquets and boutonnieres are always close-up ready, and the scene-stealing flower girl herself? Forget it. Of course, planning your wedding’s florals is no delicate task, and certainly not for leaving last-minute. But first things first—what are the floral trends du jour?
We turned to the New York floral designer at H.Bloom—one of the nation’s fastest-growing luxury flower and plant services—for some hints. “In our San Francisco market, I’ve been noticing a lot of new things I haven’t seen in New York recently like using kumquat branches and oranges. Putting fruits in bouquets is a big thing right now,” says Hannah D’Ottavio. “This week we have artichokes.”
Courtesy of H. Bloom
In addition to its wedding/events, gifting and corporate services—providing fresh florals to businesses like high-end hotels and restaurants—H.Bloom’s stand-out feature is its subscription-based model, allowing customers to sign up to receive flowers and plants in their homes on a bi-weekly or bi-monthly basis. The brand’s florists work in major U.S. markets, fueling constant city-to-city inspiration and new ideas for designs. “It’s just really fun to try something new every week. I always make sure there’s at least one varietal that we haven’t used before in each palette; it keeps people interested and gives us something to look forward to each week.”
Courtesy of H. Bloom
D’Ottavio notes that right now, she’s been seeing “a lot of really nice spring varietals, like sweet pea, coming in really big [due to] advances in farming. And we’re taking advantage of using things we haven’t used in the past, which is giving us more of mixed garden look: scabiosa, tulips…” (By the way, for Mother’s Day D’Ottavio loves tulips. The perennial favorite “has been really popular this spring.” And on April 25, H.Bloom is launching a new iPhone gifting app that lets users send complimentary gifts like chocolate and cupcakes along with flowers—prime time for the holiday ahead).
Courtesy of Marta Locklear
On the table, the centerpiece is making a comeback in a big way. “Instead of making just one arrangement, or a couple little arrangements on a table, [people are doing] more opulent, multi-level, cascading displays. And not just with flowers either,” D’Ottovio notes. “It’s [usually] a large floral piece and a display of plants, which people weren’t putting on their tables before. Mint has been a really big color this year, and there’s not much mint floral, so people have been doing succulents to make up for that, then adding other soft pastels to go with it.” For summer, New York-based floral designer Kathleen Hyppolite of Kat Flower hopes “that bridal florals will mimic the season—wild, fun, loose and lots of color.”
Courtesy of Marta Locklear
The rise of innovative, abundant creativity in floral design, not to mention the endless possibilities that stem from it, can only mean traditionally popular trends will inevitably fall to the wayside. Among them, anything all-white (“There’s not a lot of monochromatic anymore,” says D’Ottavio) and orchids (“No one’s really into orchids lately,” she adds, “so that’s kind of a big change.”). But both florists agree that there are hardly any mistakes to make.
“I hesitate to tell clients that something will not work unless it’s something that is financially prohibitive or fundamentally in nature’s hands, like sourcing cherry blossoms in October,” says Hyppolite. “I am in the business of making things happen. It’s probably a carryover from my years of event planning: if you’re willing to throw money at it, lots of things will work.”
