3 Mistakes When Holding Your Wedding Bouquet And How To Avoid Them

Florals are a stunning part of your wedding celebration. Having a good floral design is one of the best ways to ensure your vision looks coherent throughout the wholeday. One of the greatest accessories, a tried and true staple for a merrier’s kit, is the wedding day bouquet.

Wedding bouquets supplement and bolster the beauty of your wedding day. It can have a fun pop of colour and is a great way to personalize your day in a meaningful way. Now, I’m not a florist but have photographed more than 200 weddings and so I’ve come in contact with countless bouquets. As a Boston Wedding Photographer, I want to discuss the best way to hold your bouquet. Often a step that’s glossed over, how to hold your bouquet is a question I find myself answering frequently.

Now, I know during the hustle and bustle of the wedding day, it can be quite overwhelming to remember everything being thrown at you. You’re trying to greet your guests, soak in the day, look your best all the while fretting over all the details you spent months deliberating. So, it’s unsurprising that, sometimes, you’ll hold the bouquet incorrectly. But don’t fret, as your photographer, I am always there to to correct the bouquet position if the situation calls for it.

Before it gets to that, though, I want to provide tips that will help you hold your bouquet confidently and looking good for you and the lens. So I wanted to provide you with three common mistakes and solutions for each one.

Mistake #1: Holding the bouquet too high

Look, it’s natural to have nerves on your wedding day, it means you care. What ends up happening, as a result, is holding the bouquet too high. This might even be a way for you or your people to hide yourself from the spotlight unconsciously. When this happen, you end up covering a lot of the details you are wearing. You hide the bodice and all the details at the top of your dress. Not only that, having it too high can actually create an unflattering silhouette.

So the solution? Simple – hold the bouquet nice and low. Rule of thumb, the bouquet should not be as high as your chest. You can prevent that by ensuring your hands are slightly below your navel. This will allow you to feel comfortable and relaxed, keeping your elbows slightly bent and arms looking long and elegant. Holding your flowers like this helps to create flattering silhouettes.

Holding your bouquet low is much easier on your biceps (those things can be heavy) and makes for incredibly stunning photos

Now here’s a pro tip: tilt the bouquet slightly forward so more of the flowers are showing. This makes the florals look more voluptuous and full and will come out great in photos.

Mistake #2: Holding the flowers in the wrong direction

The 3D nature of your wedding bouquet sometimes makes it difficult to hold it in the right direction. Which way is the front? Which way is the back? Especially with the trend of cascading greenery in the bouquet, it’s not always obviously which way is the front.

Now most classic bouquet are ribbon wrapped to hold the bouquet stems together. The ribbon have a row of pearl-tipped pins that hold the ribbon in place. These pins are landmark for the back of the bouquet. Those pins should always be facing you.

If it doesn’t have pins, and the florists isn’t nearby, use a mirror! Florists know what they are doing, and are good a designing. There’s a method to the madness, so simply reposition it until you find what looks and feels right.

Mistake #3: Forgetting to dry your flower stems

More often than not, your florist will deliver your bouquets in water. They do this to keep your flowers as fresh as possible so they will look their best for the whole day. An unfortunate but completely avoidable mistake is not drying your bouquet after you remove it from water. This can be problematic because the bouquet can get your dresses wet and sometimes even staining it. Not a great look.

The solution is to leave paper towel near your water vases. Sometimes, a thoughtful florist will leave some behind. This allows for easy access to dry your flower stems when you need them! Or, sometimes, your photographer (me) might just use their own suit jacket to dry them. Hey, I rather get wet then your dress get wet.

I hope that this blog post has helped you feel more confident about holding your wedding bouquet. At the end of the day, if you don’t remember any of this, no worries! Enjoy your wedding day, and leave the worrying to me, I will always look out for these mistakes so you feel and look your best.

If you looking for a florists, check these amazing florists out!

• Little Blooms Floral
• fleurs petite
• The Dirt Empress
• Botanique Cape Cod

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