21 Best Flowers For a Beautiful August Wedding (2024)

You may wonder, why choose seasonal wedding flowers if most blooms nowadays are available year-round?

Seasonal blooms are not only cheaper. They also look fresher, live longer, and convey the season’s unique appeal.

Consider your wedding style, personal preferences, color theme, and location to pick the best summer wedding flowers.

1. Gardenia

Gardenias are favored for their intoxicating fragrance and waxy white or yellow petals. These stunning blooms look well in floral arrangements, boutonnieres, cake décor, hairpieces, and centerpieces.

A gardenia-only bridal bouquet looks impeccably elegant, but these blooms look equally beautiful with other white seasonal flowers like freesia, hydrangea, rose, and lush greens.

Perhaps, gardenia’s only drawback is its fragility and relatively short lifespan. If you choose a gardenia bridal bouquet, make sure it’s as fresh as possible.

2. Zinnia

Zinnias are unusual summer garden flowers with a spherical shape and a myriad of petals. Zinnias come in orange, yellow, pink, red, purple, and white. These colorful blooms resemble chrysanthemums or dahlias but are smaller.

Zinnias are an excellent way to add texture and volume to any floral arrangement. They look gorgeous with gerbera daisies, dahlias, poppies, and anemones and work well in flower crowns, centerpieces, bouquets, and boutonnieres.

3. Rose

Roses are deservedly some of the most popular wedding flowers due to their versatility, longevity, and year-round availability.

There’s a rose variety for any preference, from classic tea roses to unusual “Wild Blue Yonder” resembling peonies. Furthermore, roses come in nearly any color you could think of, including bi-colored varieties.

Roses pair well with any other flower and work great in bouquets, boutonnieres, hairpieces, centerpieces, cake toppers, and ceremony arches.

4. Freesia

Freesia is an elegant summer wedding flower with a long stem, large leaves, sweet fragrance, and delicate blooms. Freesias have a long vase life and thus are an excellent choice for a wedding on a hot summer day.

You can choose from yellow, orange, red, pink, purple, and double-colored freesias, but the most popular choice for weddings is, of course, white.

Freesia-only bouquets look endlessly chic, but this stunning bloom goes well with nearly any other seasonal flower.

5. Orchid

Orchids are some of the most popular exotic wedding flowers. While most brides choose pure white Phalaenopsis orchids, the selection of varieties and colors is plentiful, from spotted Encyclia Citrina to petite Epidendrum orchids.

Orchids are highly versatile – they look beyond gorgeous in minimalistic bouquets or in modern cascading arrangements with other exotic flowers.

You may use single orchid blooms as boutonnieres, hairpieces, centerpieces, or simply put them on each guest’s plate.

6. Iris

Most people know only purplish-blue irises, but these beautiful August flowers also come in yellow, white, peach, plum, and pink colors. Some varieties combine two or three colors. All irises have a recognizable shape.

Irises go exceptionally well with freesias, lisianthus, hydrangea, hyacinth, and delphinium, but iris-only bouquets are exceedingly popular and beyond chic. It’s an excellent choice for a blue wedding color theme.

7. Dahlia

Dahlia is a popular garden bloom with dozens of petals and an array of color varieties, including bi-colored. Some dahlia varieties have a spherical shape; others have long and narrow or fridged petals.

Thanks to the endless variety of shapes and colors, dahlias are very versatile and work well for any wedding style.

You may opt for a minimalistic white dahlia-only bouquet with greens or mix colorful dahlias with zinnias, chrysanthemums, and roses for a buoyant, vibrant look.

8. Cornflower

Wildflowers are especially popular among summer rustic and bohemian brides. Classic blue cornflowers are an easy way to incorporate “something blue” in your wedding, but these blooms also come in pink, purple, and white.

Cornflowers look the best with other wildflowers and some garden blooms, such as sunflowers, zinnias, baby’s breath, and rudbeckia. A cornflower crown is a beautiful choice for a bohemian summer bride.

9. Lisianthus

Lisianthus, also known as Texas bluebell, is a delicate summer flower with a sweet fragrance. Some lisianthus varieties resemble tulips, while others look more like petite roses.

The most common lisianthus colors are pink, blue, purple, and white, but there are also two-toned varieties.

Lisianthus works well in elaborate and minimalistic arrangements, boutonnieres, and centerpieces. The best flower combinations with lisianthus are freesias, gardenias, and irises.

10. Sunflower

Sunflower is among the best rustic wedding flowers, featuring large sunny-yellow blooms with a black center and long stem. Sunflowers look best on their own or paired with cornflowers, baby’s breath, and other wildflowers.

However, sunflower arrangements with lisianthus, garden roses, and freesias may also look stunning if done right. These cheerful blooms work well for bouquets, flower crowns, boutonnieres, centerpieces, aisle décor – you name it.

11. Delphinium

Delphinium is a long-stemmed flower with small, clustered blooms that comes in an array of blue, purple, pink, red, and white shades.

Due to its shape, florists don’t typically use delphinium for boutonnieres and other small accessories. However, it makes gorgeous table and aisle décor and can make even the simplest floral arrangement look creative.

Hanging delphinium ceremony arch is a dreamy, endlessly romantic choice for a whimsical or bohemian wedding.

12. Hydrangea

You can recognize hydrangea by spherical shape and delicate petals. These August garden flowers come in blue, purple, pink, white, and even green colors.

Hydrangeas work well in mono-flower arrangements due to their volume and texture but also look stunning with gypsophila, carnations, roses, and peonies. These glorious blooms work best as venue décor or bouquets.

13. Carnation

Some brides avoid carnations thinking they’re too cheap for such a big day. Meanwhile, carnations have numerous benefits apart from cost-effectiveness – long lifetime, unusual texture, volume, and versatility.

Carnations come in pink, red, orange, yellow, white, purple, and other colors. You may come across decorative varieties in brown and blue, red and white, and other creative combos.

Carnations make excellent filler flowers and look beyond gorgeous with peonies, roses, gardenias, zinnias, and other textured blooms.

14. Tweedia

Tweedia is a petite sky-blue flower ideal for a carefree rustic or bohemian August bride. The rich greenery and clustered blooms make tweedia an excellent filler flower, though a tweedia-only bouquet is a great choice for minimalism admirers.

15. Chrysanthemum

Chrysanthemums are popular garden blooms with endless varieties – they can be small or big, with large pistils or without visible centers, flat or spherical, with rounded or long and narrow petals.

Furthermore, chrysanthemums come in an array of shades, from white and green to bi-colored. Due to such versatility, chrysanthemums work excellently in bouquets, venue decor, boutonnieres, hairpieces, and cake toppers.

Chrysanthemums look gorgeous with textured garden blooms like zinnia, rose, and dahlia. Alternatively, you may ix and match different chrysanthemum varieties and colors.

16. Queen Anne’s Lace

Queen Anne’s lace is a white summer wildflower with a crown-shaped, flat-topped head and tiny clustered blooms creating a lace-like pattern.

It’s an excellent filler flower that can make any bouquet look more attractive. Pair Queen Anne’s lace with roses, tulips, freesias, zinnias, peonies, anemones, or rich greens – this unusual flower looks well in any combination.

17. Lily

Lilies are summer-flowering bulbs with large bell-shaped blooms and an intoxicating fragrance. The color palette is plentiful, from classic white lilies to two-toned and almost black “Night Rider” varieties.

Then, there are also exotic trumpet-shaped calla lilies and unique “Turk’s Cap” lilies. In other words, these blooms are highly versatile due to the wide variety selection.

Pure white lily-only wedding bouquets look impeccably elegant, but a colorful mix of two-toned lilies and roses or orchids is a creative choice for a tropical summer wedding.

18. Gerbera Daisy

Gerbera daisies are easily recognizable by long petals, flat head shape, and a large center. These summer garden flowers come in all orange, yellow, pink, purple, red, and white shades.

Minimalistic yet colorful bridal bouquets with different shades of gerbera daisies are especially popular among summer brides. However, gerbera daisies also pair well with zinnia, chrysanthemums, dahlias, and roses.

These vivid summer blooms also look great in venue décor. Due to the vibrant color, large bloom, and long stem, even a single gerbera daisy in a vase makes a beautiful centerpiece.

19. Bells of Ireland

Bells of Ireland are long-stemmed flowers with bell-shaped blooms resembling delphinium. The main difference is that bells of Ireland only come in bright green color.

Bells of Ireland make creative centerpieces and aisle décor. Furthermore, they can liven up any bridal bouquet.

20. Anemone

Anemones are available year-round. These flowers with rounded petals and a large black center come in white (the most popular wedding choice), pink, blue, purple, red, yellow, and orange.

Dark plum and burgundy anemones are an excellent choice for dramatic brides, while blush and cream varieties mixed with summer greens and peonies look dainty and romantic.

21. Milkweed

Milkweed is an unusual wildflower with a spherical head, a myriad of tiny, clustered blooms, and a long stem. It comes in white, yellow, pink, green, purple, and orange colors, sometimes two-toned.

Milkweed will fit rustic wedding style and goes exceptionally well with Queen Anne’s lace, lavender, and other wildflowers.