Caption: 24 hours before the wedding, and more glamorous than ever in the 30 degree heat
Caption: Even the cake was floral from AngelChops Cakes
Caption: My allotment 4 days after I took over 800 stems from it!
Caption: My bouquet
Caption: The reception and speeches
Award-winning garden writer Becky Searle shares her experience of growing her own wedding flowers, with practical tips on choosing varieties, planning sowings and making the most of what’s already in your garden:
Growing my own wedding flowers
The summer of 2026 brought about some huge challenges for gardeners. On my allotment the water butts had run dry by the end of July. My clay soils had dried and cracked even under several years’ worth of mulch. Elsewhere the world turned to sepia tones, with dried grass and brown leaves on trees.
For me, this year brought about another, slightly more personal challenge; to grow my own wedding flowers. My lovely new husband asked me to marry him after a five-year relationship, and I was excited to finally, at the grand old age of 40, plan a wedding.
Of course, being a gardener, my first thought was about flowers.
We knew we wanted the day to be colourful and full of flowers. My plan was simple; we had rented a slightly dingy village hall for £20, and I got hold of 60 second-hand bud vases to go down the banquet tables. The bud vases would also be our wedding favours, negating the traditional tatt, and relieving us of the problem of what to do with 60 vases after the big day. All I had to do was fill them. This meant that realistically I needed around 8-10 stems per vase. That’s around 480-600 stems, just for the table decorations. I also wanted them in the entrance to the hall, on the cake table and dotted around the room. If it weren’t for my desire to grow my own flowers, I think my husband-to-be would have left me there and then in fear of financial ruination. In fact, the average cost of flowers for a wedding is £1000 in the UK, and my taste was what some might call a little extravagant. A back of an envelope estimate for the number of stems I “needed” came out at between £800 and £1,800, depending on the flower, and where I got them from.
Then of course, if you are environmentally minded, you should also consider where those flowers come from. Many are grown under intensive conditions with a plethora of pesticides, chemical fertilisers and fungicides. And to add to that they often travel long distances to adorn the shelves of our florist shops, clocking up the floral equivalent of food miles. If you source locally grown flowers from your local flower farm (most of us have one, even if you don’t know about it), they will undoubtedly be a more sustainable option but are unlikely to cost any less.
For us gardeners there is of course a natural choice; grow your own. In fact, most of us already are growing at least some of our own flowers anyway. It is fun, rewarding and saves a lot of money. In fact, a quick rummage through my seed collection and it happened that I only needed about £10 worth of seeds to make all my floriferous dreams come true. If you are interested in growing your own flowers either for a wedding, or another special event, here are my top tips.
Make sure your flowers match your date
If you have the luxury of planning your event around when things might flower, do that. I looked back on my many years’ worth of photos from my garden and picked a wedding date that corresponded with when most of my favourite plants usually flower in my garden – cheating, I know. If you don’t have the luxury of choosing a date to suit your flowers, then you’ll need to work backwards and choose flowers that suit your date. Don’t set your heart on tulips if you’re getting married in June, and don’t try to grow dahlias for a spring party, it won’t work.
Spend some time to research what flowers in your area around the time that you have your event planned. Cover yourself further by growing plants that repeat flower, otherwise known as “cut and come again” flowers, as these have a much higher chance of being in flower at the exact time you need them. Many of the flowers I planted struggled with the early and intense heat this year and didn’t flower in time, still more flowered much earlier than I anticipated, so it’s worth bearing in mind that you will need to be flexible as even our best made plans don’t always work out.
Make a plan
This ties in with timing, because once you know what plants will flower around when you need them, you should make a plan of when you need to sow them and plant them out. Some plants will flower earlier if you sow them earlier, like sweet peas sown in autumn, that flower earlier than sweet peas sown in spring. If you’re going for a “one and done” flower like a gladiolus that will only flower once a year, you need to get the timing spot on, or better yet, make a few plantings or sowings a few weeks apart to cover yourself. I had gladioli at my wedding, but I was only able to use about a quarter of the flowers I planted. Thankfully I had enough to be getting on with. Which leads me to my next point.
Grow more than you think you’ll need
This might sound obvious, but I can’t stress it enough. Picture this; you’re standing in your garden or allotment the day before your wedding choosing flowers. Some will have gone over. Some will have mysterious bites out of them. Some will for reasons unknown to any of us have come out the wrong colour, and yet more won’t be ready to flower yet. You need to start by working out roughly how many flowers you will need, and then times that number by about three, unless the plant you are growing reliably produces more than one flower.
Be flexible
The more flexible you are on what you will use on the big day, the more chance you have of success. If you set your heart on a big bouquet of homegrown dahlias, but we have a wet summer and your dahlias are decimated by slugs, you’ll be disappointed. Picking schemes that include a diverse range of flowers you likely won’t notice too much if one or two of the things you planted don’t make it to the final display.
Forage
Don’t forget about the flowers you are already growing, or the ones that are growing around where you live. My beds are teeming with Verbena bonariensis, and these plants ended up playing an active role in my flower displays, lending their pop of vibrant purple to a series of 50 bud vases. A large clump of fountain grass in my front garden that I’ve never given too much attention to before suddenly became a rich source of texture and interest. In fact, it would have been entirely plausible in July to have grown all my own wedding flowers without adding a single purpose-grown plant to my allotment.
Part of foraging includes asking friends and family if they have anything you can use. In my experience most people are delighted to share the fruits of their labour with someone for their big day. So, take the time to snoop around in the lead up to your big day and make a list of plants you might forage or ask to cut.
As we got married in a small village, the locals were more than happy to lend a hand, with someone offering us a large bouquet of hydrangeas, and many more giving us their tubs, pots and baskets for use on the day to decorate the venue.
Allow time for cutting
The problem with growing your own flowers, is that in order to keep them fresh, they really need to be cut as close to the big day as possible. That means that if you’re a bride, you will find yourself on the day before your wedding with a pair of secateurs in hand and probably covered in dirt. A long-sleeved top, gloves, cap and plenty of suncream is important if it’s a warm day and you want to look your best the following day. I enlisted the help of my mum and a few friends the day before to help arrange the flowers, transport them and set up the venue. This is certainly not a one-person job!
Choosing your flowers
When it comes to choosing your flowers, I recommend you base this primarily around what you are consistently able to grow. The likelihood is that if you grow something well every year, it is well-suited to the conditions in your garden and will therefore flower well for you when you need it to. This isn’t always the case, but it’s a good rule of thumb. If you haven’t grown flowers before, you’ll need to put in some time to research what will do well. There are of course many, many wonderful plants you can grow for your big day, and I highly recommend doing some research before committing to anything. But here are some ideas of easy plants you might want to try:
Sweet peas: Very easy to grow but they need a lot of organic matter to help feed them, and a lot of water. I recommend putting some compost in with them when you plant, and giving them a thick mulch too, without covering the stems. Then mulch again a few months later if needed. I like to use Dalefoot’s Wool Compost for Vegetables & Salads for this. Water regularly and cut the flowers off every few days. Stop cutting them about 7-10 days before the big day.
Cosmos: These are also super easy and thrive in a wide range of conditions. Sow them indoors in spring and plant out after the risk of frost has passed. Keep cutting the flowers as they go over. They will need plenty of water and organic matter to establish but then can be very robust and drought tolerant once they get going.
Dahlias: Excellent if your event is in Autumn and you have nice light soils. They struggle in my heavy clay. If you want to grow them from seed, start them off the previous year. If you’re happy to grow from corms, start them in some Dalefoot Bulb Compost in the greenhouse in early spring, and plant them out once the risk of frost has passed, with a nice mulch of Wool Compost for Veg, or even Dalefoot’s Wool Compost Double Strength.
Zinnia: Happy, jolly colours and a long case life, zinnias are easy to grow and thrive in warm summers providing they have plenty of water to get them going and a good amount of organic matter. Give them a mulch after planting and remember to keep deadheading them.
Nigella: Perfect for some dreamy textures and colours, nigella can be direct sown onto a prepared seed bed in spring. I recommend making several sowings to ensure the timing, though they can repeat flower if you cut them right back after they flower, though this can take a while.
Sunflowers: Cheerful and bold, sunflowers are always a crowd pleaser. Choose some multi-headed sunflowers and either direct sow them in spring or sow them in the greenhouse. They are very prone to slug damage while young, so beware!
Gladioli: If you want huge impact, look no further than gladioli. They’re so easy to grow from bulbs it almost feels like you must be doing something wrong. Make sure to provide some support as they grow and plant the bulbs in batches to ensure the timing works out.
Feverfew: These delightful little perennials are a joy in the garden and in vases, like lots of little daisies. They are best sown the year before you want to use them as they can be quite slow growing, but once they get going, they’re extremely generous and have an excellent vase life.
I loved growing my own wedding flowers, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who likes gardening and has ideas above their financial station about how many flowers they will need. It was a delight to be able to share my flowers with so many people, and see my floral dreams become reality. Furthermore, I was able to enjoy vast bouquets of flowers all summer long.
Becky
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Becky Searle is a garden writer and author of Grow a New Garden; Plan, Design and Transform any Outdoor Space. She trained as an ecologist and specialises in soil health and ecosystem gardening. You can follow Becky online at @Sow_Much_More.