Royal Wedding: Flowers, Flowers, Flowers!

The wedding world is a buzz today with the long awaited Royal Wedding of Prince William and Katherine Middleton.  I did not wake up at 4am to watch the wedding live since I will be attending a viewing party this evening filled with hats and tea...and Guinness, but I have been watching and reading clips about it all day.  What an exquisite event.  The pageantry, tradition and modern take were so beautifully put together that it has me wanting the fairytale even more now.

Of course, I have to talk about the flowers....
Kate hired English floral designer, Shane Connolly, to produce the classic English garden ambiance for the big day.  Check out these 20 foot tall English Field Maple trees that were specially brought in and potted to line the aisle in Westminster Abbey.

The trees will be replanted in the royal family gardens post wedding.  What a great way to keep a piece of your wedding around for the kids to enjoy.

How about Kate's bouquet?!  So sweet and simple.  It complimented her Grace Kellyish dress so perfectly.

Kate has a fondness for the meaning of flowers and took special care to incorporate flowers of significance for the Royal Family, the Middleton family and on the Language of Flowers.  Her bouquet included the following with their meanings:


Lily-of-the-valley – Return of happiness
Sweet William – Gallantry...and so adorable.  If only every guy had his name in a flower.
Hyacinth – Constancy of love
Ivy: Fidelity; marriage; wedded love; friendship; affection
Myrtle: the emblem of marriage; love.

Going a step further, there were even sprigs of myrtle from the plants that were used for both the Queen's wedding bouquet in 1947 and Queen Victoria's bouquet from 1845.  That's putting a lot of history into one little spray of flowers which leads me to wonder, what will happen to Kate's bouquet when the fanfare has faded?!  Instead of tossing the bouquet to all the single ladies at the reception, the bouquet will be returned to Westminster Abbey to be placed on the Tomb of the Unknown Solider.  But, what happens after that?!  Personally, a lovely painting would really work well with the tradition of painted portraiture that royalty loves to line their walls with.  My paintings are palace worthy, right?!  Too bad Kate and Will plan on living in a quaint cottage without all of the gilded gold walls.  A Reenie Rose painting wouldn't be a good fit.  Ah, guess I'll just have to wait till Harry ties the knot!