Morts Musings

A couple of my friends are getting married soon, and while having a couple of jars, with the groom to be, the other night the subject turned to wedding flowers, and their meanings. Flowers have had meanings and symbolism attached to them since time immemorial, and the reasons why some flowers are used for specific events, or occasions, today often goes back to these, mostly forgotten, symbolic meanings.
It’s a subject that my friend (the groom to be) & I soon got round to, (although it’s not normally the kind of topic I’d rush to the encyclopaedia to investigate, it was of more interest to me than hearing the minutia of their wedding plans,) and actually ended up talking about for a little while; I guess it was some common ground, he’s hearing all about this sort of thing from his betrothed, and I’m generally interested in historic traditions, & symbology.

Anyway, I learned a few things I didn’t know, and was even inspired to do a bit of looking around for myself, to find out more, &, good natured, sharing, soul that I am, I thought I’d write a bit about the symbolic meanings of some of the more common wedding flowers.

Carnations

A common wedding flower, partly because of tradition, but also because they’re often a cheaper option than some of the other traditional wedding flowers. Carnations in fact have a wide variety of meanings, depending on their colour. Overall they symbolise love, distinction & fascination, although these general meanings are altered by the carnation’s colour. Pink ones symbolise a woman’s love, red ones admiration, and white ones are often used as a Groom’s buttonhole because they symbolise fidelity & ardent love. Yellow ones, however, should be avoided as they symbolise refusal or disappointment. Carnations should also be avoided if your beloved is French, as in the french speaking world they symbolise misfortune.

Roses

Everyone knows that the red rose is a symbol of romantic love, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, many of the other colours also have meanings attached to them. White roses symbolise purity, but can also indicate honour and reverence, while yellow roses are used to display happiness or friendship, & pink roses are often given as a sign of admiration .

Orchids

Often an expensive choice, but also a distinctive one. Orchids, in general, symbolise beauty, but also have other associations, such as love & wealth, and in ancient Greek society also alluded to virility.


Whatever flowers you want, and whatever occasion they’re intended for, there are a host of places that they can be ordered online these days, for example the Marks & Spencers Flowers section, this allows one to shop around and find exactly the flowers to suite, not only the event, but also your pocket! Isn’t the internet a wonderful place?

Tags: Weird stuff

This entry was posted on Friday, June 19th, 2009 at 5:37 pm and is filed under Weird stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.