Floral Crowns: Past, Present & Future

Flo­ral Crowns have been pop­u­lar since the time of the Ancient Greeks. Read more about the his­to­ry of flo­ral wreaths we wear. Flow­ers by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Kit Wertz

Every­where we look, we are see­ing fresh flo­ral crowns on mod­els in mag­a­zines and on run­ways.  They are not a new idea! Now we’re see­ing not just flower girls and brides wear­ing flo­ral crowns, but all types of peo­ple for all types of occasions!

The halo of fresh flow­ers has been a pop­u­lar acces­so­ry for hun­dreds of years.  Ancient Greeks wore crowns at spe­cial occa­sions in hon­or of their gods.  Dur­ing Medieval times, flo­ral crowns fell out of fash­ion since many pagan reli­gions used them dur­ing their rituals.

Our own indige­nous Cheyenne peo­ple worn crowns made of wil­low, cot­ton­wood or sage dur­ing cer­e­monies and rituals.

And, in Decem­ber, Nordic cul­tures still cel­e­brate St. Lucia Day where a young girl wears a crown made of leaves and can­dles in a pro­ces­sion of light.

St. Lucia Day — December 13th

The Nordic obser­va­tion of St. Lucia is first attest­ed in the Mid­dle Ages, and con­tin­ued after the Protes­tant Ref­or­ma­tion in the 1520s and 1530s. The mod­ern cel­e­bra­tion is only about 200 years old. The pre-Chris­t­ian hol­i­day of Yule, or jól, was the most impor­tant hol­i­day in Scan­di­navia and North­ern Europe. Orig­i­nal­ly the obser­vance of the win­ter sol­stice. The Yule sea­son was a time for feast­ing, drink­ing, gift-giv­ing, and gath­er­ings, but also the sea­son of aware­ness and fear of the forces of the dark. (Source: Wikipedia.com).

These days, the flow­ers in flo­ral crowns are big and bold. Go big for full impact of the flow­ers. Flow­ers by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Kit Wertz

Wedding Floral Crowns

Flower girls have been priv­i­leged in recent past years to be adorned with fresh flow­ers. Now, brides are show­ing inter­est, too with large flo­ral wreath designs. Flow­ers by Flower Duet.

Queen Vic­to­ria made the orange blos­som flo­ral crown pop­u­lar (along with the white gown) for wed­dings when she wore one for her nup­tials to Prince Albert in 1840; how­ev­er, there are many cul­tures around the world whose wed­ding attire includes fresh flo­ral head wreaths.

Ancient Poly­ne­sians, tra­di­tion­al Ukraini­ans and the Chi­nese all wore flo­ral crowns for wed­ding cer­e­monies to sym­bol­ize fertility.

One of our love­ly bride’s receives a love­ly kiss from her flower girl who’s wear­ing a flo­ral crown and car­ry­ing a lit­tle posy. Flow­ers by Flower Duet.

 Floral Crowns & Personal Flowers for Parties & Events

Casey shows a guest at the South Coast Botan­ic Gar­den’s 53rd Annu­al Meet­ing and Foun­da­tion Din­ner how to make a flo­ral fas­ci­na­tor. Pho­to by Kristi­na Lee Photography

For the past few months, we cre­at­ed flo­ral crowns and per­son­al flow­ers as a par­ty event fea­ture. For a Foun­da­tion Din­ner at the South Coast Botan­ic Gar­den, we showed guests how to cre­ate their own flo­ral fas­ci­na­tor and for a lit­tle girl’s birth­day par­ty in Pacif­ic Pal­isades at the Bel Air Bay Club, we cre­at­ed cus­tom flo­ral head wreaths using fresh flow­ers on-the-spot for lit­tle girls and grown-up women alike! That par­ty will be fea­tured in an upcom­ing blog post on karaspartyideas.com.

Like us on Face­book and you’ll see when we update our fol­low­ers with the live link to the blog post.

NEW! Wedding Series Classes Offered by Flower Duet Features Floral Crowns and Hair Flowers

We are excit­ed to announce a Wednes­day evening Wed­ding Flo­ral Design Class Series t0 be offered through­out 2015.

Three times next year, we’ll offer a month­ly series of three class­es. You can sign up for one class or a whole series. These will con­cen­trate on three areas of wed­ding flow­ers: bou­quets, cen­ter­pieces and per­son­al flow­ers — which will include cor­sages, hair wreaths/floral crowns and boutonnieres.

This class series is geared toward those who want to increase their aware­ness of wed­ding flow­ers and work with tricky wed­ding tech­niques. It can be use­ful for casu­al flower arrangers who want to round out their flo­ral skills.

Any­one can wear a flo­ral crown now! It’s in style, it’s hip and it’s not just for wed­dings! Flow­ers by Flower Duet. Self por­trait by Kit Wertz

 Think Pink for your Holiday Decorations!

This mini pink glit­ter wreath is my inspi­ra­tion for a pink hol­i­day! Orna­ment from Michael’s. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

When you are won­der­ing how to mix up your hol­i­day dec­o­ra­tion col­ors this year and want to shy away from tra­di­tion­al red and green and metallics, why not go for pink?

Pink-themed Christ­mas tree. Orna­ments by Roger’s Gar­dens. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

It’s fun, it’s cool to throw some Design Mas­ter Glit­ter spray on to give it some jazz and there are a pletho­ra of pink flow­ers and pink metal­lic orna­ments to choose from this hol­i­day sea­son. Here are a few ideas for you to use pink in your hol­i­day flo­ral and tree dec­o­rat­ing for 2014.

Pink sequined sea horse for a pink hol­i­day! Orna­ment by World Mar­ket. Pho­to by Kit Wertz

Pink flow­ers are read­i­ly avail­able this time of year for a pink flo­ral hol­i­day. Here are a few ideas for how to use pink in your hol­i­day designs.

Pink Peonies are not only around in June. We bought some last week just like these. Flower Duet Flowers.

Pink tulips can make a del­i­cate state­ment in a black or sil­ver vase for the hol­i­days. Flow­ers by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Kit Wertz

Pink var­ie­gat­ed poin­set­tias are a great option to light­en the mood dur­ing the dark days of win­ter. Pho­to by Flower Duet.

Pink cher­ry blos­soms are fea­tured on this Japan­ese lantern orna­ment from Roger’s Gar­dens. Per­fect for a florist’s Christ­mas tree. Pho­to by Kit Wertz

Pink ros­es would look extra fes­tive with glit­ter spray from Design Mas­ter. Flow­ers by Flower Duet. Pho­to by Kit Wertz.

Flower Snow­man How-To Craft Idea

Order one today and let us know if you have any ques­tions or please share your cre­ation with us. We would love to see the snow­man from around the world. It’s an easy PDF down­load from our shop­ping site.

Shop for our FLOWER SNOWMAN INSTRUCTIONS.

2014 Gift Ideas for the Floral Enthusiast

Each year we lust over lus­cious flo­ral gifts for the flower lover. Whether you are a gar­den­er or flo­ral design­er, it’s fun to shop for and receive gifts that are flo­ral relat­ed. From soaps to softy fluffy throws. Here are a few ideas for that spe­cial some­one on your list!

Floral Magazines

Don’t for­get about our favorite mag­a­zines for flower enthu­si­asts like you!

Right now, flower mag­a­zine is run­ning a 2‑for‑1 spe­cial on sub­scrip­tions!

Kit writes for our local flo­ral trade mag­a­zine, The Bloomin’ News.

You can get a sub­scrip­tion mailed to your house!

Each issue fea­tures a design arti­cle by Kit and many oth­er fea­tures on our local Los Ange­les Flower District!

Flower-Themed Gifts

Lux­u­ry flo­ral throw at Bed, Bath and Beyond!

Rein­deer Moss Wreath from shopterrain.com

Ham­mered cop­per pots from shopterrain.com.

Air Plants Book

Plant the Pack­age Soy Flower Can­dles from uncommongoods.com.

Hand-Tied Bou­quet DVD from flowerduet.com

Flower Books

The flo­ral designs in this book may be too large for your cof­fee table, but the book will fit nice­ly into your col­lec­tion. Author Olivi­er Dupon has beau­ti­ful­ly com­piled images from 38 world-renowned design­ers and cre­at­ed this amaz­ing look at flo­ral design as true art.  Give this as a gift to any flower enthu­si­ast and you may receive reg­u­lar flo­ral instal­la­tions for your own home.

Beyond the eye-catch­ing botan­i­cal illus­tra­tion of seed pack­ets, which always catch my atten­tion, Flo­ra Illus­tra­ta is an extra­or­di­nary thought­ful­ly edit­ed col­lec­tion of the over 1 mil­lion botan­i­cal and hor­ti­cul­tur­al works found at the above-men­tioned des­ti­na­tion. From the twelfth cen­tu­ry to today a trea­sury of insight to the world of plants and flow­ers and how they have been a stud­ied, need­ed and admired enti­ty to our lives and the gen­er­a­tions who have come before us.

More Gift Ideas

Find more ideas on our Pin­ter­est Board. We cre­ate a gift list each year to give you some more ideas for flower lovers.  Don’t for­get, Flower Duet also offers Gift Cer­tifi­cates!