Your Pick of the Garden: Fresh vs. Faux Floral Design
By Cori Burcham, Writer
When flowers first began to spring up in wedding decor, the reasoning behind the bride’s choice of blooms — albeit unorthodox in modern times — was rather straightforward. Brides during the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans carried a bouquet of herbs and spices to safeguard themselves from superstition. In the Victorian era, specific flowers were chosen for the bridal bouquet based on their meaning, selecting daisies to represent innocence and red roses as the ultimate symbol of love. Because flowers in the wedding industry continue to evolve and adapt to meet the demands of the present day, modern-day brides — guided by their personal preferences and style — share the freedom and burden of customization, which makes the couple’s task of selecting the quintessential wedding flower all the more complicated.
With the advent of more realistic options for artificial flowers, the traditional choice of fresh flowers is being challenged as the industry standard. To help couples weed through the budding variety available in floral design today, local florists Alison Sappington and Meredith Moore detail the benefits and drawbacks of each to guide couples towards the blooms that’ll breathe life into their special day, whether the flowers are real or not.
Sappington — the creative director and owner of Alison to the Altar, an Ocean City-based wedding florist — offers fresh and artificial flowers for weddings held along the East Coast. While Sappington mentions fresh flowers are more popular with her clients, her business offers various predesigned silk rentals for ceremony decor, such as arches and aisle markers. When couples first inquire about her floral design, Sappington gains an understanding of the couple’s vision and budget, which she then uses to guide them toward their choice of either fresh or silk flowers. “We make the flowers work the budget,” says Sappington, who suggests mixing fresh flowers into a silk or dried arrangement to meet a couple’s price point. While Sappington points out that high-quality silk flowers can be comparable to fresh ones, she personally prefers working with real flowers for some of the more evident reasons fresh has become a staple in wedding decor.
With their delicate beauty, soft fragrance, and natural color palette, fresh flowers are not only a sensory experience, but an emotional one. Due to our custom of giving fresh flowers as gifts to our loved ones, they’ve become a way to silently express our affection, speaking volumes as the perfect decor to say “I do” underneath. Paired with the coastal backdrop of the Delmarva coast, fresh flower arrangements enhance the romance of our natural surroundings, lending an enchanting, fairytale aesthetic to any outdoor wedding. “In my opinion, it's just the difference between ordinary and luxury,” says Sappington, who prefers the challenge of designing with fresh flowers.
Moore — the owner of Innerbloom, a full-service wedding florist based in Ocean City — claims that one of the benefits of fresh flowers is the life it brings to an arrangement. Unlike artificial flowers, which often tend to be stiff, there’s more potential to create a lovely line and bring a sense of movement to an arrangement with fresh flowers, according to Moore. “I think with fresh, I’m able to achieve a more natural element to your tablescape and make it look like it’s growing right out of the table,” says Moore.
Despite the many reasons to favor fresh flowers, there is one standout disadvantage that gives couples pause from choosing them outright: the cost. A survey conducted by The Knot discovered that the average cost of fresh flowers for weddings in 2023 was $2,800. If the bride’s flower of choice is out-of-season around her wedding date, Moore mentions that the price can rise exponentially. “With fresh, sometimes flowers aren’t available when certain wedding seasons fall,” says Moore, proclaiming that peonies — a popular choice amongst brides — are available for a short window in May and become almost quadruple their original price during the rest of the season. To avoid these hefty upcharges, Moore always offers substitutions — flowers that are similar in style and presentation — to achieve the same aesthetic without the extra expense.
One of the reasons there’s been a shift in popularity towards artificial flowers in recent years is because they can be a more cost-effective alternative. According to Moore, any couples exploring faux flowers with the aim of trimming the cost should approach a larger rental company — such as Something Borrowed Blooms or Silk Stem Collective — which offers premium silk arrangements for rent at a lower value. One of the main drawbacks to using one of these companies, however, is that the creative freedom to customize your floral design becomes more limited, with only prearranged options available from their collections. Those set on expressing their individuality still have the option of custom silk orders through Innerbloom, but even Moore admits it can be pretty costly. Because her clients tend to be more partial to fresh flowers, Moore prefers not to keep silk in-house and has her customers buy them outright, which wouldn’t be practical if the goal is to save a few bucks.
Especially in our coastal climate, one of the benefits of choosing an artificial flower is its durability. Unlike fresh flowers, which tend to wilt in the summer heat or crumple in the rain, faux flowers can withstand any unexpected extreme weather. If the faux flowers are a custom order, their longevity also makes them a great keepsake after the wedding since they won’t perish and they don't need to be pressed to be preserved, according to Sappington. While Moore is strictly a fresh flower florist, she’ll typically guide her clients towards artificial if the flowers they’re imagining for their wedding don’t exist in nature. From blue roses to lavender hydrangeas, faux flowers have expanded the color palette and combinations previously available in floral design, allowing couples to explore the theme and colors of their choice beyond the limitations of nature.
Another factor that may impact a couple’s choice between faux and real flowers is sustainability. Given their natural origins, fresh flowers tend to be the most environmentally conscious option because the organic material is compostable. According to Moore, Innerbloom partners with the grassroots organization Go Green OC to recycle their flowers into soil. “I love that our flowers get put to other uses aside from just getting thrown in the trash,” says Moore. Because the transportation of fresh flowers can contribute to carbon emissions, it’s important to note that the natural decor will remain eco-friendly as long as the blooms are locally grown and seasonal.
Many of the more realistic artificial options available for weddings, such as silk, foam, and wax-coated flowers, feature plastic components that would be harmful to the environment if they ended up in a landfill. With this in mind, one of the best ways to decorate with artificial guilt-free is to find options that are reusable or sustainable. Try renting your arrangements from a faux flower company that uses their bouquets in multiple weddings or repurpose the flowers after the event into home decor to cut back on unnecessary waste. Sola Wood Flowers, another flower rental company, is also a sustainable, biodegradable option. Unlike silk, which uses a lot of energy and chemicals to manufacture, wood flowers give couples the same variety and realistic appearance with none of the harmful production practices.
Regardless of whether your choice of flower is full of life or simply imitating it, the one thing that matters most to both florists is the final product, creating a garden of decor that gives the appearance it’s flourishing as much as the newlywed's marriage. “I love watching the whole day unfold,” says Moore, who looks forward to viewing the venue’s transformation from a blank canvas to a beautiful space. To commission Sappington or Moore’s floral design services for your wedding, visit www.alisontothealtaroc.com or www.innerbloomfloral.com.
