Are daisies your thing? Do lilies just make you swoon, or daffodils send you over the moon? Identifying the type of flowers you'd like to use for your wedding is a good way to start this process. If you're not really a flower person and don't have a favorite, you can go by color scheme, or you can incorporate flowers into the bouquets based on their traditional meanings. The most common flowers and plants and their meanings are:

• Red roses: love

• Lily: majesty

• Iris: affection

• Lily-of-the-valley: happiness

• Ivy: fidelity

• Gardenia: secret love

Consider the Season

Thanks to modern advances in greenhouse techniques, most flowers are available year-round. However, their prices may vary according to the season. The price of red roses, for example, spikes around Valentine's Day, when demand is at its highest; meanwhile, the price of lily-of-the-valley drops in May, when these blooms are naturally in season.

You'll want to keep the season or location in mind for the sake of appropriateness, also. If you're planning a wedding in the South Seas, use the natural flora found there; it's part of your décor, anyway. Meanwhile, if you're planning a Christmas wedding in a mountain lodge, think twice before ordering hibiscus bouquets, even if they are your favorite blossom; they just won't look or feel right.

Where Do the Flowers Go?

Perhaps you're wondering what the big deal is about wedding flowers. A couple of baskets of flowers here and there and you're all set. Well, depending on the site of your ceremony and reception, you may be faced with filling a lot of empty spaces with prettiness. Think about:

• The church or synagogue. Is it big or small? Will the pews look barren without anything on them? What about the entryway?

• The canopy. Is it decorative enough on its own, or does it need some sort of decoration added to it?

• Your reception site. Is it a tent, an outdoor patio, an indoor hall? Can you envision topiary trees, plants of any sort, ribbon strung from here to there?

• The tables. They'll need centerpieces. Will candles of various sizes work, or might candelabrum do the trick? If you're having a seaside wedding, might you be able to fill bowls with various shells and use them as your ornamentation?

You get the idea. Your goal is to fill empty space with wedding-themed paraphernalia. Think about adding tulle draping to the pews, or ivy garlands to stairway banisters. Grapevine wreaths are easy to put together; they can be used as homespun centerpieces for less formal weddings.