Wedding Flora Quotes

“The room had been decked with late-blooming roses that cast up a sugary glasshouse scent. Yet amongst the profusion of china and silver, the atmosphere was one of flamboyance, rather than celebration. Mrs. Croxon announced that we should eat 'exactly the Bill of Fare as given by a most genteel Countess at Bath'. I had no appetite for sardines in mustard, creamed oats and kidneys, for I had a stomach full of butterflies, as my mother had called my fits of nerves.”
― Martine Bailey, A Taste for Nightshade

“I follow her into a storeroom at the back of the shop and catch my breath when I see the bouquets she has made for the shoot. I've seen a lot of wedding flowers, but nothing like these.
There are soft apricot roses with dusty-blue delphiniums, creamy-white peonies with miniature pink alliums. Waxy green orchids with deep purple irises.
A phone rings in the shop and she excuses herself and goes back outside to answer it. I bend down and pick up a pretty tumble of glossy green ivy and pale purple bells on slender stems.
The flowers have a delicate scent, something elusive between hyacinth and freesia.”
― Ella Griffin, The Flower Arrangement

“Tonight Ray will tape the the drenched oasis inside of the silver bowl that sits on the top of the candelabra and fill it with the pale green hydrangeas, pink English garden roses, lilies of the valley, and extravagant lavender sweet peas that R.L., the local florist/antique dealer, delivered a few hours ago. The flowers are all soaking in their respective sugar water jugs in her kitchen- out of the direct sunlight, of course- as is the oasis which she'll mold into every bowl and vase in the house with a similar arrangement. She's even going to make an arrangement in a flat sweetgrass basket to hang on the front door and a round little pomander of pale green hydrangea with a sheer white ribbon for Little Hilda to hold as she greets the guests in the foyer.
Ray is tempted to snip the last blossoms of gardenias growing secretly behind Cousin Willy's shed. In her estimation they are the quintessential wedding flower, with their intoxicating fragrance and their delicate cream petals surrounded by those dark, waxy leaves. She bought the seedlings when R.L. and the gals weren't looking at the Southern Gardener's Convention in Atlanta four years ago, and no one has any idea she's been growing them. Sometimes she worries that the fragrance will give her away, but they bloom the same time as the confederate jasmine, which grows along the lattice work of the shed, and she can always blame the thick smell on them. It would take a truly trained nose to pick the gardenias out, and Ray possesses the trained nose of the bunch.”
― Beth Webb Hart, The Wedding Machine

“Additional flowers had been piled into a pair of massive baskets that were strapped across the back of Beatrix's mule, Hector. The little mule led the crowd at a dignified pace, while the women walking beside him reached into the baskets and tossed fresh handfuls of petals and blossoms to the ground. A straw hat festooned with flowers had been tied to Hector's head, his ears sticking out at crooked angles through the holes at the sides.
"Good God, Albert," Christopher said ruefully to the dog beside him. "Between you and the mule, I think you got the best of the bargain." Albert had been freshly washed and trimmed, a collar of white roses fastened around his neck.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Love in the Afternoon

“Preston Bailey is the be-all, end-all." Mary Ellen sighed. "He is the top celebrity and Saudi royal-family wedding planner, and people pay him millions of dollars just to plan an event. He's like the Baz Luhrmann of weddings---he creates the most transportive, gorgeous fantasy worlds." She pulled a coffee-table book from the top shelf above her desk, ignoring Abigail as usual. At least the indifference was mutual.
Claire and I drooled over every picture in the book about Bailey's events. There was a twelve-foot Arc de Triomphe made entirely of rose heads, massive chandeliers hanging from the ceiling hanging from the ceiling dripping in white phalaenopsis orchids and crystals, every kind of animal you could imagine made completely out of roses, and that was just the first chapter.”
― Mary Hollis Huddleston, Without a Hitch