Best Wedding Flowers for October Weddings

The best OCTOBER wedding flowers in the Pacific Northwest

LOCALLY GROWN FALL WEDDING FLOWERS FOR OCTOBER

We know that planning your wedding can quickly get overwhelming - especially when it comes to choosing flowers! Our region has so many gorgeous local flowers growing year-round, and Pinterest is a gold mine for inspiration. But how are you supposed to know what is blooming when?! After growing and designing with local flowers for many years, we love helping clients know exactly what to expect. This week, we wanted to share some of our favorite locally grown wedding flowers for October! Weddings in October can be a little tricky, since we typically experience our first frost in October. So, hopefully this guide will help you plan based on your exact wedding date!

DAHLIAS

Early October brings the last hurrah of dahlias, which we always try to make the most of! Dahlia plants completely blacken at the sign of first frost. So, we always try to enjoy them while they are still around! We particularly love the way that dahlia colors shapeshift in October. Many blooms soften and mellow, while others get even more vibrant and luscious (like the variety above). We love dahlias because you can find hundreds of varieties for any wedding color palette. For example, in this colorful multicultural wedding, we used traditional Indian-inspired warm shades of fuschia, carmine, marigold, salmon, and wine. For a more pastel wedding, we might use dahlias in white, blush, lavender, and peach tones. No flower is more versatile or useful during the many months of wedding season!

MARIGOLDS

Marigolds somehow seem like they are at their best in October! Maybe it's all the pumpkin spice going to our heads, but we love playing with these bright orange beauties. They also come in neon yellow (not our jam) and a creamy ivory color. The ivory color works wonders for weddings with a lighter palette. All of the varieties show off those distinctive, crinkly petals we love, and have beautiful ferny foliage. However, the traditional orange marigold will always have a special place in our hearts! 

We love how orange marigolds add a little bit of fall goodness and playfulness to any arrangement. We can lean more sweet or moody depending on what we choose to pair with them. And of course, they are an essential flower in all of our Indian weddings! We love using marigolds in garlands, mandaps, and bouquets for these couples. For any bride who wants a pop of color in their fall wedding, marigolds provide the perfect bold accent! Lastly, we love marigolds because they possess some really unique properties among cut flowers. They last FOREVER in a vase, and dry beautifully, too. They also provide pest control in the garden with their unique scent. You can even eat them if grown organically, or use them for dye! Is there anything these amazing flowers can't do!?

RUDBECKIA

We are unapologetically in love with rudbeckia. Like dahlias and marigolds, they only last until first frost, so we have to make the most of them! We love how their kaleidescope of fall tones pairs with any conceivable wedding palette in October. Whether you are having a blushy, neutral wedding, or choosing something a little bolder, they are the perfect addition. I was so impressed with them last year, I even wrote a love letter to rudbeckia hirta. We love the variations in shapes, petal counts, colors, and forms. They are the perfect "bridge" flower between neutral and darker, earthy tones, as you can see in the bouquet below. For October weddings, rudbeckia provide the perfect fall touch while still being subtle and sophisticated. (No corn and sunflowers here, folks.) We can't get enough!

LILIES

Do you love or hate lilies? Don't worry - they can be controversial. We go through cycles of loving them and then not using them for a long time. Many people don't enjoy their strong scent, or the fact that they can sometimes seem "basic." But when lilies are good, they are really good. We love the vast array of colors, freckles, stripes, and other unique attributes that lilies possess. Our local growers really work magic with the varieties they select, so the lilies we can source are never boring or basic. They certainly make a big statement - which isn't for everyone! But they are one of our favorite wedding flowers for October. We love them for their drama, color, and availability in times when tender flowers have already been taken by frost.

FALL FOLIAGE

October provides us with truly spectacular fall foliage, not just in our walks around Seattle, but also at the flower market! From beech to maple, peony to ninebark, plants just get so extra in October. We absolutely adore the wide variety of tones, textures, and shapes in October fall foliage. We can source bright yellow to almost black foliage, and basically any color inbetween. Some of our favorites to use are peony foliage, dried bracken fern, smoke bush, and oakleaf hydrangea. You can see all of these in the grounded arch below, from last year's October elopement. Late October definitely becomes a time where we lean more heavily on these foliages, since the tender annual flowers have finished. No matter which variety of foliage we choose, we never regret choosing it for our fall weddings!

HEIRLOOM MUMS

Unfortunately, mums get a really bad reputation that they don't deserve! When I say "mums," most people think of those weird grocery store plants that they always put next to the pumpkins. However, heirloom mums are a totally different ballgame. Growers in the US have been slowly and carefully cultivating varieties that our grandparents might recognize. These heirloom mums once won competitions, wowed home gardeners, and provided a steady fall cut flower for old-timey florists. (You know...before importing out-of-season flowers became "normal.")

In the last decade, heirloom mums have steadily gained popularity among gardeners, farmers, and florists. Mums are the perfect wedding flowers for October! They continue to bloom long after frost, and come in an astounding variety of colors and shapes. As you can see, their petals can be quill-like, with little spoons on the edges, flat, spider-like, or curved inward. Their colors range from blushy pastels to bold reds, oranges, and purples. And they play nicely with a wide range of fall foliages, textures, and other ingredients. Like marigolds, they also last insanely long in the vase - like, sometimes more than two weeks! We love to use heirloom mums in our October weddings because they simply never disappoint! 

PLANNING YOUR FALL WEDDING DESIGN

Your florist should know what flowers are locally available and in season for your wedding month. (And if they cannot answer this…RUN!) After growing our own flowers for years, we are more dedicated to local flowers than ever, especially as we continue to witness COVID’s impacts on the global supply chain. During the pandemic, florists relying on cheap imported flowers have routinely been forced to scramble, substitute, and use inferior products due to these issues. Prioritizing local flowers means that we can always make sure our clients have the best of what is available that season, that month, or even that week! And we work closely with dozens of our farm friends to make sure we can execute your vision beautifully and ethically.

GETTING MARRIED IN OCTOBER?

We know wedding planning can be overwhelming, with so many flower choices and inspiration images. That’s why we love helping our couples articulate their vision so they can have the wedding of their dreams, and give their guests an experience they won’t forget. And our books are now open for October weddings in 2022! If you are ready to have the lowest stress you can possibly have when it comes to flowers, let's chat! You can click below to inquire and we'll get back to you as quickly as possible. We can't wait to meet you!