Peonies vs. Roses for Your Wedding – Symbolism, Thematic Design & Which are Best?

If you’ve ever been gifted a bouquet of flowers or purchased a sweet bunch from your local market as a treat to yourself, you understand what an impact beautiful, living things can have on our moods and mindset. When planning your wedding, working with a florist or wedding designer can infuse your wedding day with intentionality, flowers that spark joy and even some that bring a little spiritual significance to the proceedings. 

There are a lot of beautiful flowers to choose from, but not all of them say “romance” like roses or “softness” and “sweetness” like peonies. In this post, we will evaluate peonies vs. roses for your wedding — delving into their origins, symbolism and the pros and cons of committing to each one as your main floral focal point.

The Importance of Flower Meanings and Origins

The concept of flower meanings and origins isn’t a stranger to anyone. However, since you may be in the midst of wedding planning, you may want to know the meaning and origins of the flowers so it fits within your overall vision and wedding theme. 

Additionally, the know-how of the flowers’ meaning and origin will help you know how to avoid specific blooms in your wedding decorations, bouquets, and centerpieces.

Where Did Peonies Originate?

If you are an admirer of flowers, chances are you’ve seen a peony at least once in your lifetime and their signature, tissue-paper-like pinkish petals that smell so fragrant and open into a full, frilly, luscious bloom. While the peony is likely to have originated in Chinese gardens dating back to 1,000 BCE, modern Japan is a prolific distributor of peonies. 

In eastern countries, peonies are often used for medicinal purposes for treating everything ranging from birthing pains to headaches. Typically, their seeds and roots are considered most medicinal — though coincidentally, peonies are transcendently beautiful to look at and beyond lovely to smell. Indeed, in China, peonies are considered good enough to eat; the fresh petals are sometimes made into a salad, sugary floral desserts or as an additive to refreshing beverages like lemonade.

After western explorers “discovered” peonies in eastern countries in the 1800s and brought them back to Europe and beyond, the peony has continued to be an extremely popular flower in personal or professional gardens, flower shops and as ornamental touches here and there. At their peak, peonies can reach up to 10 inches in diameter (via Appleyard London)!

What Is the Metaphorical Significance of Peonies?

Peonies bloom in late spring and into June, often with their lighter-pink flowers blooming earlier than their deeper-blush compatriots. Because of this, they are often associated with summer wedding bouquets and remain a very popular choice among brides. Aside from their heavenly smell and unmistakable look, peonies are associated with abundance, wealth, elegance, honor and romance — so it’s no wonder they are a popular choice among brides!

Where Did Roses Originate?

While roses also have ancient roots reaching back to China and Central Asia, they also grew wild in Europe and the Mediterranean. They were heavily cultivated by the Chinese and grown in gardens and for tea. At one point, land supporting rose gardens was more abundant than land available for crops. The Han dynasty emperor was forced to till over some of the beloved flowers to replace them with edible and nutritious crops.

Roses have a history in Greek mythology, originating with Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty — and eventually, the Greeks came to see roses as symbols of love, secrecy and silence. Ancient Egyptians also had a significant obsession with roses, with some claiming that Cleopatra tried to seduce Mark Anthony by filling her fountain and chambers with rose water and rose petals.

It wasn’t long before the Romans picked it up and connoted roses with beauty, purity, passion and love — though to some, it signified the opulence of the Roman empire and was not necessarily thought of positively. Rose water has also been used in Persian and Indian cuisine and medicine for many years.

Naturally, they took off in England around the 19^th century and were first brought to North America in 1699. They were even grown at Thomas Jefferson’s estate, Monticello (via IPM University of Missouri). Now you can buy commercially grown roses at every large chain grocery store — though often the wild or garden-grown ones smell much sweeter and offer endearing uniqueness and imperfections.

What Is the Metaphorical Significance of Roses?

Roses have long been admired throughout cultures across the world for literally thousands and thousands of years. While they have long been associated with passion, romance and love, some associate them with the journey of life itself — thorny in places but with grace, harmony and happiness as a reward — not to mention a pleasant smell.

How Many Weddings Feature Roses in Their Bouquets?

Undoubtedly, roses are one of the most — if not the most commonly picked — flower for wedding bouquets in America. With a range of options from commercial, uniform-looking roses to small, lacy spray roses or garden roses that sprawl out luxuriously as a peony, there’s plenty of room for fun for your florist to play with the theme of roses for your wedding centerpieces and other floral arrangements. 

Thematic Designs With Roses in Weddings

Below are a few thematic designs couples can use rose flowers for. 

To Prettify Wedding Mandaps

While floral mandaps have been a tradition forever, the ones decorated with roses hold a special place in our hearts. They look super dreamy and can beautify your wedding vows like no other.

Therefore, get a few rose garlands, use them around your mandap space, and behold, you have the mandap of your dreams. 

To Beautify the Wedding Entrances 

Do you, by any chance, don’t want your entrance decorations to look anything short of excellent? Then, it’s time you discard everything and inundates it with the sereneness of roses to give your entrance to your wedding that excellence. 

To Design Backdrops 

Do you want your guests to have fun and take mind-blowing wedding pictures? Then all you need to do is have an all-rose backdrop in your wedding decorations.

Want your guests to have fun and click great photos at your wedding? Then it would be best to have an all-rose backdrop in your wedding decor. You can ask the decorator to put it up in a corner as a photo booth, so you can even take lovely wedding photos too.

How Many Weddings Feature Peonies in Their Bouquets?

Only slightly less well-known, peonies also make common appearances in American wedding bouquets, especially when they are in season between April and June. These are one of the most coveted marriage bouquet flowers as they are relatively tricky to catch at their peak bloom and can add up quickly if you’re looking to use them in more floral arrangements than just a peony wedding bouquet.

Thematic Designs With Peonies in Weddings

One of the best traits of peonies is its versatility. It can be mixed and matched with any other flower to create a beautiful table setting or centerpiece arrangement that suits your wedding style. From perfect ballroom bashes to simple outdoor fetes, peonies complement all types of weddings. Also, you can design it in many ways. Some of these ways are:

Table Setting

There are various ways to create a beautiful wedding reception tablescape with peonies. You can start by topping each guest’s dinner plate with a single peony. But for a smooth, united look, ensure it matches the peonies in your centerpiece arrangements. 

Plus, you can spread peonies across the length of your tables for a romantic confetti look. You can also cluster peonies in milk bottles and have them create a table runner ombre effect by choosing flowers in similar shades.

Hanging Arrangements

Hanging floral installments has excellent effects when it comes to reception decor. Then visualize glistening chandeliers draped in peonies and garlands of blooms strung between twinkling lights. That’s a sight to behold. Best believe you and your guests will feel like walking through a garden wonderland.

Wedding Cake

An all-white wedding cake topped with fresh flowers creates a simple but fantastic look. Hence, your cake designer could create sugared peony petals that cascade down the cake. 

Also, you can have them hand-paint peonies in your wedding colors around the cake layers. After that, they can crown the top of the cake with fresh flowers. The perfect image of instant edible art!

Ceremony Arch

The ceremony arch creates a focal point for weddings, and it’s the perfect way to really “thrill” the guests. There are various creative options for your arch style, as sands are in the earth. You can design your arch from simple arrangements of peonies tied to each side of the arch to a full-on flower installation with woven greenery. Go for it.

Find inspiration for your big day from these other popular posts:

• Bouquets For Brides
• How to Find and Decorate the Birch Wedding Arch
• Unique Wedding Bouquet Flowers For Your Inspiration

Peonies vs. Roses for Your Wedding: Pros and Cons for Each

There is so much to love about both of these gorgeous flowers! But when it comes to budgeting, aesthetics, wedding theme and symbolic resonance, there are a couple of things to consider before deciding which bloom to walk down the aisle towards. Don’t forget this bouquet may inspire a lucky bridesmaid to be the next in line for a wedding at the ceremony’s close!

Benefits of Peonies for a Wedding

Many people love peonies — and honestly, it’s easy to see why. They are unique themselves and offer such a perfectly imperfect beauty and one of the most wonderful scents in the world — tempting enough to eat in some countries. There are several obvious reasons why a bride might want to carry peonies down the aisle, including:

• There’s no mistaking peonies: they are drop-dead gorgeous, striking, unique, vary in color and size and offer up big, luxuriously soft, dramatic blooms.
• The soft pinks and pastel colors are well-suited to appropriate themes and color schemas.
• They smell amazing: If you know, you know.
• They have beautiful symbolism for a wedding bouquet, including wealth, abundance, honor and romance.
• They bring an element of play — and almost childlike fun — to the proceedings: Though many peonies are cultivated in gardens, they often don’t appear cultivated when in bloom. In fact, they look rather whimsical, as if each one has been customized by Mother Nature herself.

Downsides of Peonies for a Wedding

So, what’s not to love about peonies? We were hard-pressed to come up with too many negatives about this sweet bloom. Here are some cons to consider about a peony wedding bouquet:

• They have a short blooming period and only work for summer weddings, so if you’re trying to save money by getting married in fall, winter or even early spring, these are not your flowers. Fortunately, there are many more to choose from!
• High demand: They can be hard to buy at any time of year, let alone spring and summer when they bloom.
• They are more expensive than roses and often are reserved exclusively for the wedding bouquet. This means adding them to other floral embellishments or arrangements will be limited unless you have a massive budget.
• They are not Disney Princess Perfect: If perfect is the look you’re going for, you’d be better suited with roses, as peonies are a little more playful and quirky.

Benefits of Roses for a Wedding

As they say, if it’s not broken, why fix it? Roses have long captivated humans — almost universally worldwide — with their undeniable beauty, sweet fragrance (if grown right) and wide number of varieties. Especially if you are feeling called to host a traditional wedding, roses are a classic choice for a reason. Here are some of the top reasons to love roses for your wedding bouquet:

• They are abundant and widely available: You could walk into almost any grocery store in the nation and buy a cheap bouquet of picture-perfect roses for a surprisingly low price — though the cultivated garden varieties provided by your local florist are obviously going to cost a little bit more.
• They are still cheaper than peonies: Through thousands of years of idolization and borderline worship, we’ve all but made the rose bulletproof. A full bouquet of roses can cost anywhere from $50 to $250 or more — whereas peonies start at $75 for a modest and relatively straightforward bouquet and only travel upwards from there.
• They come in several varieties and many colors for more variety: This makes them easily customizable to fit a color scheme or theme for your wedding and offers a little more wiggle room for your florist (and more wiggle room for your budget).
• The symbolism: They represent purity and passion and have a longstanding history of being symbolic of love and beauty.

Downsides or Roses for a Wedding

Have you ever heard of something that looked too perfect? Sometimes those grocery store commercial rose bundles can have the same look of a perfectly embalmed body, waiting to be tossed in a vase to die. Of course, not everyone feels this way about a classic rose (clearly), but there are some other cons to choosing roses for your wedding:

• Common, very traditional option: If you’re not careful in working with your florist, your bouquet could end up bland, cliché and uninspired.
• There are so many other flowers out there to choose from besides roses — why settle for the old standby when you can break tradition and choose something that feels right for you?
• Limited bloom period for the most beautiful and fragrant varieties: While mass-produced roses can be cultivated under almost any circumstances, garden roses (which are the most fragrant, unique and organic-looking roses) bloom between late spring and early fall.
• Roses cultivated during the off-season are only “half alive”: If you get married with roses in the off-season, your roses will not be fragrant, only pretty to look at.

Peonies vs. Roses: Which One Is Right For Your Wedding Day?

Wow. Who knew there was so much to consider when it comes to the simple choice between peonies and roses for your big wedding bouquet? Hey, the flowers speak a thousand words — and for a naturally-grown and ultra-fragrant peony or rose, you might as well make that two thousand words. While there’s a lot to love about these gorgeous flowers (both associated with love and abundance), both have limitations and perks.

Depending on what time of year you get married and the size of your budget, this choice can become relatively simple relatively quickly. If you have space in the budget and have planned your ceremony amid peony season — lucky you — though getting your hands on a florist who hasn’t already committed their last peony bouquet to some other blessed bride might take some work and forethought.

While in their worst light, roses might appear stiff and predictable as a wedding bouquet, if you opt for a hand-cultivated mixture of varietals, colors and textures, you can truly end up with a stunning, one-of-a-kind bouquet any florist would be proud of — and likely at a lower price than the peekaboo peony. 

But you know, at the end of it all, this is your day — so if you want picture-perfect roses and a classic white wedding, go for it! But don’t forget, in the endless debate of peonies vs. roses, there are many, many other beautiful blooms out there — from ranunculus to sunflowers, lilacs, hydrangeas, orchids and lilies of the valley. If you still can’t decide which flower is right for your décor or will be in season during your scheduled ceremony, reach out to your florist and start a dialogue as soon as possible!