Make your wedding planning more painless for you by starting with picking just the right wedding flowers that expresses the meaning most important to you and then planning your wedding from there.

One of the many pitfalls that come with wedding planning is the deep meanings we attach to the wedding down to some of the smallest details. It’s been said that human beings are meaning machines – that we create meaning out of everything – and there’s no reason why you can’t put that to work for you. Roses are the most traditional example for a flower choice for weddings and they have symbolized love and passion for centuries. Like many traditions, it was started partly out of their very rarity in some parts of the world and the expense and labor that went in to simply obtaining one; you had to deeply care about somebody just to bother. It also provided deep food for thought for the more philosophical types because of the dual nature of a rose; the beauty and softness of its petals and the ferocious nature of its barbs. As the tradition grew, the choices of the colors you gave began to develop meaning as well. Red roses were an expression of passionate love, pink of appreciation and gratitude, yellow of a deepening friendship…

Eventually, even chosen combinations of color came to have meanings of their own. For example, to give red and yellow roses together means "congratulations".

Most brides do want to know the meanings of their favorite flowers, and it is suggested that you find out before you order them. As human beings we also tend to be superstitious creatures, and it might bother you to find what out the meaning of your chosen flower and its color as an afterthought, when it’s too late to change it. It could have some unfortunate overtones to be carrying a flower in your wedding bouquet that symbolizes regret or infidelity – true meanings of some flowers.

There are lots of resources available to help you delve into the meaning of your wedding flower, whether you prefer looking online or ordering a book to carry around with you and pore over with friends. The better ones will include snapshots of the flowers to give the non-botanist an idea of what flower they’re actually talking about.

You’ll have lots of wonderful flowers available to pick from with deep and valuable meanings for a bride-to-be, and you’ll want to start by narrowing your choices down to a fairly large list and then finding out what colors they’re available in. Colors are an important aspect of self-expression, and will surely play a large part in your final choice, as well as the time of year that you’re getting married in and the seasonal availability of your favorite flowers.

Once you’ve selected your primary flower to develop your wedding around, you can then go on to choose your supplemental flowers to add complementary meanings to your main choice and use them to express the values that you hold the closest. The color palette of your chosen flower or flowers will then become the backbone of your color scheme for you wedding and will probably have a strong influence on the style and theme, which is what makes it such a great place to start.