Room to bloom
When it comes to bouquets, brides are ‘craving something different’
When Heather and Carl Harrison got married last year on April Fools’ Day, a stormy one at Riviera Beach in Anne Arundel County, she wore a black dress and held a bouquet of purple, orange and black faux flowers. Her wedding theme was inspired by the 1993 movie “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” and her bouquet, in addition to her wedding table decorations, was made by the owner of an area Etsy shop called Crafts2Much, specializing in bouquets and decor for “Halloweddings.”
“It just felt more personal,” said Harrison, 42, who wore a white dress and had a purple, gray and black bouquet at her first wedding. The second time around, her unexpected theme “felt like it fit.”
Harrison hasn’t been alone in embracing out-of-the-box bouquets and floral arrangements. Florists and wedding planners are fielding requests for bright and bold flowers — and Maryland-based Etsy artisans are
taking it a step further.
“Times are changing so much,” said Amanda Lea Anderson, the Pasadena bank manager behind Crafts2Much. “People don’t want copy and paste. … Brides are craving something different.”
Anderson, 43, launched her Etsy business in the fall of 2020, after making a bouquet of red and black faux flowers and centerpieces with skulls for a friend’s Halloween-themed October
wedding.
“I never really saw myself doing something like this,” she said. At her own wedding almost two decades ago, Anderson had more traditional white, purple and silver flowers, but said she’d go with something more in line with her current designs if she were to do it over again.
Now, she’s shipped her creations — from skull-shaped candle holders to cascading bridal bouquets — to over 30 different states and abroad, she said. Her centerpieces and faux floral arrangements, made for weddings and other occasions, are gothic; “Adding a touch of elegance to the spooky” is her tagline, she said.
“It’s not gory or anything,” she said clients have told her. “You can look at it, and even if you don’t appreciate Halloween, or gothic or dark romance, you can find beauty in it.”
Today, Harrison said her “The Nightmare Before Christmas”-themed bouquet, with a large skull in the center and movie-inspired embellishments, is on display in a vase in her kitchen.
For others, jumping for a distinctive bridal bouquet means incorporating dark-colored flowers.
“It’s your wedding, so you can do whatever you want,” said Martha D’Onofrio, who owns two Anne Arundel County flower shops, Little House of Flowers in Gambrills and Always Blooming Florist & Boutique in Pasadena.
“The most important part is your bouquet,” she said she tells bridesto-be.
This winter, D’Onofrio, who was born in Bolivia and said an entrepreneurial spirit runs in her family, received a request from a bride who wanted black flowers in her wedding bouquet; a deep burgundy “Black Baccara” rose was the answer. She’s
also received a request from a groom for a black boutonniere.
It’s a departure from the pampas grass floral arrangements that she said have been popular in past years and more traditional wedding flowers, which she described as centering white and soft blush hues and varying depending on the season — coppers for fall or pines and reds around Christmas, for example.
But more couples want to incorporate color into their weddings, said Stephanie Sadowski, an Annapolis resident whose wedding planning company, SRS Events, caters to brides and grooms in Maryland and Washington, D.C.
Whereas more traditional wedding bouquets might use white roses, peonies, hydrangeas or lily of the valley, she said less expected options can include some of those same flowers, but in bolder hues like fuschia, blue, purple, orange and yellow.
For one wedding in April, Sadowski said she was working on a “color block effect” bouquet entirely devoid of white for the bride, and a different color monochromatic bouquet for each of the bridesmaids, who will be wearing black dresses.
The couple will be married in D.C.’s Renwick Gallery, a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum with a colorful ceiling installation that Sadowski described as kaleidoscope-like.
“Color makes people happy,” she said. “And if a couple loves color, then they absolutely should embrace it.”
WildFlower Stem + Sundry, with locations in Arnold and Glen Burnie, is also working with couples interested in “infusing more of their actual selves into their wedding,” said Lindsay Sadtler, WildFlower’s wedding and events coordinator.
Sometimes, that looks like mixing light blue, green, dark coral and yellow flowers for a union blending coastal style with African influence, or even Harry Potter-inspired florals — lots of greenery and darker, muted colors, Sadtler said — for a summer wedding at Historic London Town and Gardens.
“Let’s not do tradition just for tradition’s sake,” said Christine Guenther, who owns WildFlower.
“Let’s do what matters to you, individually.”
South of Anne Arundel County, in Charlotte Hall, beloved books like those that form the Harry Potter series have been transformed into flowers more literally by Judie Evans, who collaborates with her mother and sister to stock the Etsy store Melting Prose, opened in 2022, with paper bouquets, wax melts and candles.
Each of the shop’s handmade blooms are made from the pages of damaged and heavily used books, she said, shaped in a way that resembles roses and finished off with artificial
stems and leaves.
It’s an idea Evans, who works as an editor at D.C.’s National Museum of American History, said she got from perusing the web, and it can take three hours to craft a single bouquet. One key to her success: finding books that brides-to-be have a personal connection with.
“Books, especially books that you really love, become a part of who you are. So that’s a really cool, different way to inject little bits of yourself into your wedding,” Evans, 40, said. “You’ll have a beautiful souvenir of your wedding forever.”*