Weddings & Events in Dublin

Weddings & events in Dublin: choosing flowers by the wedding date

Planning weddings & events in Dublin often starts with a Friday: in 2024, Friday 21 June and Friday 6 September were Ireland's two busiest wedding dates, with 211 ceremonies each, and Fridays and Saturdays together accounted for 62.3% of all marriages that year. The June date sits inside peony season; the September one falls after it. Which flower is waiting for the bride, and what the guests send instead, depends on where a wedding date lands on that calendar.

Peony brides, and the roses that stand in once the season ends

Peonies grown in the Netherlands and the UK are cut from late April into June, and most cut flowers reaching Ireland travel through the Dutch market first. A June wedding usually falls inside that peony season, while a September one comes after it, once those stems have stopped arriving for the year.

Through the summer, peonies also turn up on the flower stalls along Grafton Street, sold loose alongside hydrangeas to passers-by.

For a later date, the usual stand-in is a peony-shaped rose, most often one of the English David Austin varieties bred to open into the same dense, many-petalled head as a true peony. Among the wedding bouquets, the Duo of Peony Roses and Peonies sets a real peony beside a rose with a similar silhouette, so the pairing still reads as one flower even once the genuine peony is out of season.

Every bouquet here is put together to order, and a photo taken before the courier leaves shows exactly what has been made, with time to ask for a change before it goes.

A January wedding, when peonies are months away

January was 2024's quietest month for Irish weddings, just 3.2% of marriages, and a bride marrying then is well past the open-air peony season. Her own bouquet turns to the same roses used by a September bride, since peony-shaped roses are the winter stand-in.

Guests looking for a gift rather than the bride's own flowers tend to turn to a basket instead. A lily basket is one answer: lilies are grown under glass and stay in the catalogue every month of the year, so it is never out of season. The 51 Jumilia in Airy Wrapping is the other option, buds can reach up to seven centimetres with a white base and a pink edge; kept in fresh, regularly changed water it holds in a vase for close to a fortnight.

Wedding flower delivery in Dublin: the venue, the toast, the RDS

Timing is agreed with the venue rather than fixed by the sender, so flowers can arrive at dessert, at the toast, or just before the couple is called up to speak. The same section covers events beyond the wedding itself: the RDS exhibition complex in Ballsbridge hosts corporate functions, and companies booking flowers for one can ask for an invoice afterwards.

One wicker basket can carry more than one bouquet, suited to a day with two destinations: the bride's flowers sent ahead, and a basket sent on to the dinner. Each address is still charged as a separate delivery. Date and delivery slot are chosen at checkout, and a courier can be asked to arrive within a set minute for a small extra charge, arranged with the account manager in advance; ordering early leaves more slots open. Delivery zones across the city are listed on the delivery zones page, and hotel rooms and Dublin weather have their own page too.

For a first look, the bride's own bouquet is the natural place to start. Guests choosing a gift for the couple do best browsing the wedding section, where the lily basket and the jumilia sit together, and anyone timing a wedding around the calendar can check what is in season among the peonies.