Destination Weddings: Silk Bouquets and Floral Design Solutions

Atmosphere is everything for some brides. As a bride, you may be imagining a beach softly bathed in waves and breezes, a rugged mountain lodge on a ski slope, a European castle with trumpets, flags, and flickering torches, which can make the perfect destination wedding. However, if you are in the middle of planning a destination wedding, you know just how complicated and expensive destination weddings can be, especially if your wedding will be happening overseas.

Floral design and wedding bouquets can be some of the most difficult aspects to complete in regard to your destination wedding. It's nearly impossible to obtain live wedding flower bouquets before your wedding and have them shipped and looking fresh at the location of your destination wedding. Similarly, using a foreign florist can be just as risky. How will you know if a foreign florist is reputable? How do you know that some of your flower wishes aren't lost in translation? How can you ensure that a foreign flower merchant isn't charging you way over the price your flowers are worth merely because you are an American?

Many destination brides have found a solution in silk and real touch bouquets!

Silk and real touch bouquets are both affordable and enduring, and can be purchased in the United States from specialty designers like Lilywinkel: the bridal blossom shop, which designs and sells both custom and ready-made bouquets, boutonnieres, floral hair pieces, and flower shoe clips. Boutonnieres and corsages can be shipped separately to each person in your bridal party to easily fit in their carry-on luggage. The bride's and bridesmaids' bouquets can also be included in carry-on or checked-in luggage if packed in a sturdy cardboard box or hat box. You'll never have to worry about your flowers wilting or being damaged by jostling.

Your wedding flowers can also be shipped straight to the location of your destination wedding if you would rather not have anything extra to bring along with you on the plane.

If you want to be really thrifty, shop sales at craft stores like Hobby Lobby and Michaels, and make the bouquets yourself. In addition to purchasing the artificial flowers there, you'll need to buy bouquet holders, ribbon, glue, realistic greenery, and any gems, butterflies, or lace you may want to use to personalize your bouquet. Artificial flowers require artistry too, so you should carefully arrange the flowers so they complement each other, so their stems are bent realistically, and so that their colors don't clash. Put the tallest stems in the middle (if it's a round bouquet) or at the top and bottom if it's a cascading bouquet.

1. High-end silk and real-touch wedding bouquets can sometimes cost just as much as a real bouquets, but you can get much more use out of them after the wedding is over. These bouquets can be kept as heirlooms for several generations, or displayed in a prominent place in your first home by placing it in a vase.
2. There are no out-of-season flowers when you buy them in silk! Normally an out-of-season flower could cost three times as much as it would when it is in season, but artificial flower prices do not fluctuate with the seasons. A real touch calla lily bouquet is just as inexpensive to buy in the middle of January as it is in June.
3. Silk flower bouquets can be purchased months --even years-- in advance and they will still look fresh by the time of your wedding. Fresh flowers have to be made within a day or two of your wedding and must remain air-conditioned until just before the ceremony.
4. Silk and real touch bouquets don't cause the bad allergic reactions that many real flowers cause. Don't worry about sneezing on your groom!