When it comes to choosing the blooms you'll carry down the aisle, why go the expected route? Personalize your flowers with fresh trimmings and your favorite colors.

Ostrich plumes bring drama and movement to this bouquet of miltoniopsis orchids, double tulips, and tree peonies (a Chinese flower once so highly revered that only the emperor could grow it). Keep the other accents -- spider lily, wire vine, and maidenhair fern -- minimal. 

M&J Trimming heavy ostrich feather fringe (mjtrim.com).

With tape-covered wire and the nimble fingers of a skilled florist, small flowers that aren't suited for bouquets can head down the aisle. Case in point: These delicate delphinium florets and tiny, star-shape tweedia, which were attached to wire stems, give fullness to grape hyacinth, floss flower, white ginger, and dusty miller, while a leather wrap ties it together. 

Mokuba New York braided metallic leather (212-869-8900).

It's often the simplest techniques -- like the subtle ombre effect of this contemporary cascade -- that make the strongest impressions. It begins with peonies and nerines as pale as ballet slippers, intensifies with godetia and darker nerines, and maxes out with bright cyclamens. For a punch of solid color, choose blooms with little to no greenery. 

Mokuba New York ribbon #4472 (212-869-8900).

A length of fabric, like this box-pleated taffeta, can update your wedding flowers three times over. Fasten folds of it to a flower girl's basket, and fill it with fluffy, inexpensive carnation petals. Or, create a colorful collar for your bridesmaids' lily of the valley and your own clutch of calla lilies, euphorbia, nerines, and ranunculus. It's a stealth way to bring color to classic white. 

Mokuba New York 50mm pleated ribbon #4640, color 2 (212-869-8900).