Flowers | 416-florist.com Flower Blog

Archive for the ‘Flowers’ Category

Using Flowers as Wedding Favours

Monday, February 7th, 2011

Wedding favours are an important part of the design of your celebration and the memories that guests hold long after your event. Too often these are overlooked amongst all of the other details involved with planning a wedding but, luckily, there is a way to enjoy fantastic, unique favours without too much hassle.

Here is an overview of why wedding flowers can work as great favours and how you can go about choosing and presenting them perfectly at your event.

Why Use Flowers as Wedding Favours?

Typical wedding favours are disposable, forgettable items that guests usually forget about soon after leaving the reception. Using flowers as wedding favours provides a unique gift that is sure to have a more lasting impression. Instead of chocolates or other small, typical items, flowers provide a sign of appreciation for your guests that they will enjoy at home for days after the celebration.

Flowers need to be purchased and arranged for weddings regardless of whether they’re being used for favours or not. Incorporating your wedding favours in with other flower choices allows you to eliminate two design tasks at once! When looking at this level of convenience combined with the unique nature of the gift itself it’s easy to see what a great favour flowers make.

How Should I Present Them?

There are a number of different ways to make your wedding favours look great. One idea is to arrange miniature bouquets at each of the reception tables. These don’t need to be expensive — a small selection of flowers taken from your wedding arrangements works perfectly. This also allows you to echo the design of your floral theme on a small scale and lets your guests bring home a physical memory of the celebration.

For an even more unique presentation idea, leave packets of flower seeds at tables along with a small photo of the blossoms and growing instructions. Presenting your floral wedding favours like this makes for an interesting and interactive gift that can live on in your guests’ garden long into the future.

Tags: wedding favours, Wedding flowers
Posted in Decoration Tips, Flowers, Wedding Flowers | No Comments »

Why Flowers Aren’t Appropriate for Jewish Funerals

Friday, February 4th, 2011

Many of us are aware that sending sympathy flowers to a Jewish funeral (or the family of the deceased) is inappropriate but some of us don’t know why. To best understand the reasons behind this — and to know why it causes offense — it’s important to look at the background of Jewish traditions regarding death.

Historic/Practical Reasons

In Judaism, the burial of the deceased must take place immediately. Most often this means that a body should be committed to the earth within 24 hours or, at most, within three days following death. Because of this, the speed by which a burial takes place has historically allowed Jewish funerals to avoid having to mask the odours of a decaying body. In non-Jewish tradition flowers have become part of funerals in order to avoid this problem but, due to the speedy burial rites of Judaism, the use of blossoms in funerals hasn’t taken the same cultural hold.

Religious Reasons

Aside from the practical considerations of a quickly scheduled burial, Jewish faith also makes note of reasons for avoiding funeral gifts like flowers. The Jewish religion emphasizes the importance of true equality among all people and this is especially important in funeral services where gifts can make one person seem more loved or of a higher stature than another. Sending sympathy flowers to one person, who accumulates more than another, can be seen as a violation of this concept.

When the family or the loved ones of the deceased are sitting shiva (a word that means “seven” and refers to the traditional grieving period) it is also important not to send sympathy flowers. During this period of time specific customs are followed and the sending of flowers is, usually, inappropriate.

Depending on how strictly the deceased and their loved ones follow Jewish law, flowers could, potentially be appreciated. For this reason, it’s a good idea to call those in grief to inquire as to their views. If they would rather not accept flowers then charitable donations are often considered an appropriate replacement for showing respect and sympathy.

Tags: Funeral Flowers, funeral flowers religion, Jewish flowers, Sympathy Flowers
Posted in Flowers, Sympathy Flowers | 1 Comment »

The History of Roses: Part Five

Monday, January 31st, 2011

In our last look at the history of roses we described the roots of Valentine’s Day and how it moved from a celebration of Christian martyrs to a secular holiday celebrating love.

Now we’ll see how a beloved holiday flower came to be associated with Valentine’s as the celebration grew to become the event we recognize today.

Valentine’s Day Symbols

As St. Valentine’s Day became an increasingly popular holiday throughout Europe and the New World, commercial opportunities began to arise. Starting in the late 18th century and hitting its stride in the 19th, Valentine’s cards, flowers and candy became common holiday gifts.

One of the largest markets was in greeting cards. The greeting card industry became one of the most profitable sectors of Valentine’s related business and, its use of roses as a central image involved with love became intimiately connected with common holiday symbols. The poetry that was often made a central aspect of these cards was largely responsible for how modern thoughts regarding the holiday came about and, in this, we can see how heavily involved roses have always been.

Roses and Love

As we described before, roses have always been associated with the emotion of love in many Western cultural traditions. This type of symbolism continued forward as Valentine’s became a profitable holiday that embedded itself in annual celebrations. As far back as Edmund Spenser’s epic poem The Faerie Queene (published in 1590), roses have been mentioned in connection with the burgeoning holiday.

A 1784 collection of nursery rhymes (Gammer Gurton’s Garland) contained the archetypal Valentine’s Day love poem (one that should sound familiar to many readers) and uses the rose as a central image:

The rose is red, the violet’s blue
The honey’s sweet, and so are you
Thou are my love and I am thine
I drew thee to my Valentine
The lot was cast and then I drew
And Fortune said it shou’d be you.

This poem encapsulates the intimate connection between roses, Valentine’s Day and love — a connection that continues to exist today.

Tags: Roses, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day roses, Valentine's Roses
Posted in 416-Florist.com, Flowers, Holiday Flowers, Valentine's Day | No Comments »