An independent guide to wedding, event, and seasonal flowers
Plain-language guides to bouquet styles, centerpieces, what's in season, and keeping cut flowers fresh, for couples and planners working with a florist and for anyone arranging flowers at home.
Weddings
Bouquets, budgets, and what to ask a florist before you book.
Events
Centerpieces, sightlines, and flowers for galas and large dinners.
Flower care
What's in season when, and how to keep cut flowers fresh.
In season through the year
Spring
Tulips, ranunculus, anemones, lilac, sweet peas, and, by late spring, peonies.
Summer
Garden roses, hydrangeas, zinnias, sunflowers, cosmos, lisianthus, and the first dahlias.
Autumn
Dahlias until the first frost, chrysanthemums, celosia, amaranth, grasses, and berries.
Winter
Amaryllis, hellebores, paperwhites, and evergreens, with most other stems from greenhouses.
Timing runs a few weeks earlier in the South and later in the North, and the guide to flowers by season covers regional differences and the flowers you can buy all year.
Start with the date
Nearly every flower decision gets easier once you know the date. It tells you which flowers will be at their peak, which ones will be shipped in at a premium, and what the weather will do to a bouquet carried outside. The guide to flowers by season gives typical windows across the US, and the New England wedding article shows the same thinking applied to one region.
The budget comes next, and it's easier to set once you've listed every piece you want and understand what drives the cost of wedding flowers. With that list in hand, the questions to ask a florist help you compare proposals fairly. At the table, the goal is to keep guests able to see one another, which the guide to centerpiece height covers. After the event, arrangements can go home with guests or be donated to a local organization, and the cut-flower care guide helps whatever goes home last longer.
