Here Comes the Bride

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge

The bouquet is a shield-shaped wired bouquet of myrtle, lily-of-the-valley, sweet William and hyacinth. The bouquet was designed by Shane Connolly and draws on the traditions of flowers of significance for the Royal Family, the Middleton family and on the Language of Flowers.

The flowers’ meanings in the bouquet are:

Lily-of-the-valley – Return of happiness

Sweet William – Gallantry

Hyacinth – Constancy of love

Ivy – Fidelity; marriage; wedded love; friendship; affection

Myrtle - the emblem of marriage; love

The bouquet contains stems from a myrtle planted at Osborne House, Isle of Wight, by Queen Victoria in 1845, and a sprig from a plant grown from the myrtle used in The Queen’s wedding bouquet of 1947.

The tradition of carrying myrtle begun after Queen Victoria was given a nosegay containing myrtle by Prince Albert’s grandmother during a visit to Gotha in Germany. In the same year, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert bought Osborne House as a family retreat, and a sprig from the posy was planted against the terrace walls, where it continues to thrive today.

The myrtle was first carried by Queen Victoria eldest daughter, Princess Victoria, when she married in 1858, and was used to signify the traditional innocence of a bride.

The Church was decorated with seasonally occurring blossoming branches. Almost 30-thousand flowers are to be used for the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton on Friday, and most of them were taken from the Royal Estates at Windsor Great Park’s Valley Gardens in Surrey

Cake designer Fiona Cairns has been chosen to make the traditional multi-layered fruit cake for the Royal Wedding.

The flowers on the cake are all based on ‘The Language of Flowers’ and were chosen by Kate herself.

The Bridal Rose symbolizes Happiness.

The Oak and Acorn symbolize Strength and Endurance.

The Lily of the Valley symbolize Sweetness and Humility.

The cake will include the English Rose, Daffodil, Thistle for Scotland, and the Shamrock for Ireland – the four national plants.

Cairns incorporated the Lambeth Method to decorate the cake a technique which is derived from a style of decorating that was popular in England where chefs and decorators would use a lot of intricate piping to create 3-D scrollwork, leaves, flowers, and other decoration on a cake. The Lambeth Method is still popular today and is frequently used by wedding cake designers and decorators to create ornate wedding cakes. A cake decorated in the Lambeth Method and accented with fresh fruit or flowers is the wedding cake of choice for anyone who wants a traditional looking, elegant wedding cake.