The month of August, considered the height of summer, is a fabulous month for flowers with an extensive choice available to brides looking to pick their wedding flowers. One of my favourite flower choices for brides to use in the August months are Dahlias. Once thought of as old fashioned and ‘grandma’s favourite’ they are now enjoying a well deserved comeback. Dahlias flower from late July right up until the first frosts and can provide a massive crop of flowers when grown in the garden. Becoming more and more popular within weddings, dahlias are a very versatile flower and provide colour, texture and interest in the most fantastic ways.
Dahlias come in a large variety of colours, and can often be variegated and have multi-coloured petals on the one flower. They are a highly textured flower with lovely, intricate detail in the petals, and come in neat, dome shaped flowers, or the longer, shaggy petal type variety. Dahlias can be soft and romantic when used with pastel colours in weddings, such as the ivory, pale pink and cream/green varieties, well suited to vintage type weddings. They can also be perfect in a colour-clashing wedding theme by using the bright, retro, warm coloured dahlias in reds, maroons, crimsons, oranges and yellows.
Dahlias are a great flower to use within bridal bouquets, and can provide a neat, compact hand-tied style bouquet, as above, or they can be used in a more textural, wild looking bouquet with plenty of foliage. How quirky is this red and white striped dahlia? I have used this dahlia as buttonholes before and they really offer a more unique alternative to the ever popular rose buttonhole.
Dahlias are a great flower to use within wedding table centres. Whether you are looking for a cluster of single stem vases in the centre of the table, or to decorate the mantle-piece, dahlias at varying heights can look so effective in a a collection of vases. These pale yellow dahlias are a great addition to the terracotta bottle vases below.
A relation to the sunflower, zinnia, chrysanthemum and daisy, dahlias are a lovely flower to use with other similar, bright flowers. Perfect in jam jars, they offer a colourful, country-style look to any wedding or event. A firm favourite of mine, I am championing the dahlia as a potential flower to include in wedding flowers to all brides who are getting married next August!!
