Weddings & Events in Vancouver

Weddings & events in Vancouver: the bride's peonies and the guests' colours

Weddings & events in Vancouver bring together two different gifts, and each is chosen on its own logic. A bridal bouquet depends on the flower and the date, while a gift from the wedding guests depends on colour and on whose wedding it is.

Peonies for a Vancouver bride: the Fraser Valley's June and July

A bridal bouquet is its own choice, built around one flower and one date, separate from the wedding bouquets for the bridesmaids and the bride's mother, each picked to echo the bride's flowers rather than repeat them.

The Peony Bridal Bouquet suits a bride marrying in June or July, when Fraser Valley growers cut field peonies for the region. The flowers in the bouquet aren't promised to come straight from those fields, but the season lines up: an early-summer wedding in Vancouver falls exactly when the local peony is at its best.

Outside that window, the Duo of Peony Roses and Peonies keeps the same round, full shape without waiting on the field. Peony-shaped roses are usually David Austin varieties, bred in England to open into the same layered cup as a peony, so a bride marrying in January or October gets the look on her own date.

For a different texture, the Wedding selection also carries a bouquet built around protea, a stiff, sculptural bloom quite unlike a soft peony or rose.

Pink-edged jumilia, not white lilies: flowers for a Chinese couple

About a quarter of Vancouver's residents are Chinese, and in Chinese custom white flowers mean mourning and stay out of wedding gifts; guests also avoid the number four and hand flowers over with both hands rather than one.

51 Jumilia in Airy Wrapping answers that custom with colour rather than white: each bud opens to around seven centimetres, white at the base and edged in pink, and with the water changed regularly it holds in a vase for up to two weeks. Handed over at the door, it reads as a gift for the couple's first weeks at home rather than for the wedding day itself, since it outlasts a bouquet carried through a reception.

A mixed basket built around lilies works the same way for a guest who wants a larger gift. Lilies are a greenhouse flower, so the basket isn't tied to a season and can be ordered in any month. Their pollen stains fabric, so a florist removes the anthers once the bloom opens, and because lilies are toxic to cats, the basket is worth skipping for a couple who keeps one. For either gift, the only number worth avoiding is four; no other count needs reading into it.

The bouquet and the basket: one order, two stops

One order can carry several deliveries to different addresses: a bouquet to the bride's door in the morning, a basket to the restaurant for the evening. Each address is costed as its own delivery.

At a restaurant, the florist agrees the time with the venue's administrator beforehand, and the basket is delivered for a moment in the programme, such as the toast, the dessert course or the couple's entrance onto the stage.

Before the courier leaves, the sender gets a photo of the finished bouquet and can still ask for changes, and a wedding florist can also work from a photo the couple supplies. The same logic applies to delivery zones, where the rate is added at checkout, and to the rest of flowers in Vancouver, where the rainy season from November to March still means hand-to-hand delivery and hotel drop-offs. A company organising a wedding or a corporate event can have the flowers invoiced on request.

Starting with the bridal bouquet narrows things to one flower and one date, while wedding bouquets cover the bridal party around her. Guests choosing a gift for the couple will find it in the Wedding selection, and anyone marrying in early summer can check what a June or July date means for peonies.