Fresh cut flowers at weddings everywhere

Fresh cut flowers are always going to be part of a wedding in this country. For one thing, this is our Western tradition. For centuries brides in Europe and North America have come to the church with flowers. And that's because fresh blooms  strongly convey a sense of so many things that we associate with a happy young couple on their wedding day: youth, freshness, beauty, fragility, purity and so on.

This lovely way of using flowers is not just something we do here. Have you noticed that flowers play a part in weddings in many cultures? The modern North American wedding showcases them (in abundance, in many cases). But so do Hindu and Buddhist weddings. And even the slightly austere, Muslim wedding, where the men and women guests don't mingle and the bride will not be present at parts of the ceremonies, flowers are always there.

There is something delightful and poignant about fresh flowers at a wedding. I'm not surprised they are carried by brides all around the world.