A personal essay on why the world has thousands of varieties of flowers — and the question every Indian wedding should be asking: why not?

I remember the moment clearly.

I was standing in one of the world’s largest flower auction houses — thousands of varieties moving through in the early hours, growers from across the Netherlands, Japan, Ecuador, Kenya, Colombia, all represented in row after row of extraordinary stems. Flowers I had never seen in India. Colours that had no equivalent in any Indian wholesale market. Varieties bred over decades for a specific quality of petal, a specific behaviour in light, a specific way of opening.

And I asked myself one question.

Why are these flowers moving to every part of the world — and not to India?

That question became Foglia d’Oro.

The Flowers India Has Always Known

Let me be clear about something first: India has one of the most extraordinary relationships with flowers of any culture on earth.

The marigold strung in garlands from temple gate to bride’s doorstep. The jasmine that appears in the hair of every South Indian woman on an auspicious morning — its scent so specific to celebration that it requires no other explanation. The Tulasi, not merely a plant but a deity, its leaf the most sacred offering in a Hindu household. The hibiscus, the dahlia, the narcissus. Down south, the magnificent Kanagambaram — its orange so saturated it seems to carry heat within it — alongside the savanthi, the chrysanthemum, each flower carrying meaning that has been woven into ritual over centuries.

These are not flowers. They are a language. And it is a language that every Indian instinctively reads.

Then, gradually, came a second chapter. Anthuriums arrived — their waxy, architectural heads a departure from everything that came before. Eucalyptus, dianthus, limonium, Indian hydrangea, lilies. The vocabulary expanded. The wedding mandap became more layered, more international in its references.

And yet something remained the same.

The design.

The Problem Was Never the Flowers. It Was the Design.

Walk through a thousand Indian weddings — from the most elaborate destination celebrations in Udaipur to the most considered intimate ceremonies in Bangalore — and you will notice something. The flowers change. The design does not.

The mandap is draped the same way it has always been draped. The centrepieces follow the same logic of volume and symmetry. The floral arch repeats itself at every venue, in every city, in every season. Swap the marigolds for garden roses and the orchids for proteas — the underlying grammar of the design remains identical.

What was missing was not a different flower. What was missing was the magic of what flowers can do when they are truly composed — when each variety is chosen not for availability or familiarity but for its specific individual character, its weight, its movement, its conversation with every other stem around it.

This is what I came back from that auction house determined to change.

What Dutch-Imported Flowers Actually Offer

Working with Dutch flowers — or with varieties sourced from the world’s finest growers — is not about replacing India’s floral heritage. It is about expanding the palette.

Every flower has its own character. Some are fragile and require extraordinary care from the moment they arrive — cool temperatures, precise hydration, stems cut at the exact angle that allows them to drink. Others are architectural and sturdy, holding their form for days with minimal intervention. Some love the Indian summer. Others are challenged by it, and demand the kind of attentive handling that only a designer who truly understands the material can provide.

This is the knowledge that separates a floral atelier from a flower supplier. It is not enough to have access to extraordinary flowers. You must understand how to keep them alive, how to work with their natural behaviour, and how to place them in a composition where their individual character does something to the whole.

At Foglia d’Oro, every flower we source is Grade A — chosen from the finest growers, handled from stem to setting with the care that exceptional material demands. And then composed, not arranged.

Flowers You Have Never Seen at an Indian Wedding — and Should

Let me introduce you to some of the varieties that have changed the way I think about what a wedding can look like.

The double-headed lily. Hold one in your hand and you understand immediately why it exists at a different level from a standard lily. Where a single lily is elegant, the double is decadent — layer upon layer of petal, a bloom so dense it feels more like a peony, opening slowly and imperiously over three or four days. In an installation against dark foliage, it reads as pure luxury.

Dancing beans. This is my favourite introduction to make. Place one stem of dancing beans among the most serious flowers on a table and watch what happens — its small, round, nodding heads bring a quality of lightness, even mischief, that no other botanical can replicate. A table without it is composed. A table with it is alive.

Grevillea. An Australian native that has become one of the most sought-after architectural stems in European floristry. Its feathered, almost prehistoric form adds a quality of depth and wildness to any composition — it does not sit still, it reaches, and it changes the negative space around every other element.

Siergras — ornamental grass. In a culture that has always associated weddings with abundance of bloom, the introduction of a considered grass stem is quietly revolutionary. It creates movement. It introduces a palette of green and silver that no flower can replicate. It makes everything around it look more deliberate.

Sweet pea. Perhaps the most romantic flower in the world — its petals so fine they appear almost translucent, its fragrance so particular it can define the entire sensory experience of a space. For intimate wedding ceremonies, there is nothing quite like it.

Muscari. The grape hyacinth — small, deeply blue-violet, growing in tight clusters on delicate stems. In a composition that is otherwise all warmth and gold, a scatter of muscari is the detail that makes the whole thing unforgettable. It is the kind of choice that guests cannot identify but cannot stop looking at.

Amaranthus. Cascading, velvet-textured, in colours that move from deepest burgundy to the brightest cerise. In a large-format installation — a ceiling piece, a mandap waterfall — amaranthus creates the quality of movement that fabric alone cannot achieve. It hangs with a weight and a grace that transforms architecture.

Achillea Parker. A flat-headed yarrow in the most saturated gold you have ever seen in a flower — not yellow, gold. It is the stem that makes a composition feel warm even before the candles are lit. In the images you see here, the Achillea works alongside craspedia — those perfect spherical bobbles — to create a play of texture and scale that no single variety could achieve alone.

What These Compositions Show

Look at the table composition in the images above — the one low and wild, anchored to the walnut surface, reaching upward with curling stems. This is not arranged. It is composed from the inside out, beginning with the architecture of the table and building a natural landscape that belongs specifically to that room, that light, that gathering.

Look at the suspended installation — dried, preserved botanicals floating above a dining table in a home in Bangalore. Nothing here was chosen for colour alone. Every stem was selected for how it would behave when suspended — how it would catch the light from below, how it would move in the slight air movement of a room with people in it.

Look at the composition built entirely in green and white and driftwood — succulents, ranunculus, baby’s breath, air plants, branches. Not a single stem from a conventional wedding flower vocabulary. And yet it is unmistakably wedding. Unmistakably celebratory. Unmistakably designed for a specific couple who wanted their celebration to feel like nobody else’s.

The Question Is Simply: Why Not?

India imports extraordinary things for its weddings. The finest silks from Varanasi and Kanchipuram. Jewellery commissioned from ateliers in Jaipur and Chennai. Furniture sourced from Europe. Photographers flown in from Mumbai or Singapore.

And then, for the flowers — the element that guests will be closest to, that they will hold and smell and stand beneath for the most significant hours of a family’s life — the same familiar faces from the same familiar market.

There are thousands of varieties of flowers growing in the world. Each one with its own character, its own behaviour, its own beauty that is unlike any other.

The question is simply: why not?

The marigold will always belong at an Indian wedding. It is woven into something deeper than design.

But beside it — a stem that has never appeared at an Indian wedding before, chosen because it does something to the whole that nothing else could.

That is composition. That is the difference.

Foglia d’Oro designs bespoke wedding florals for discerning clients across India and the UAE. All compositions use Dutch-imported and internationally sourced flowers, handled from auction to installation by one hand.

To begin the conversation, write to Hello@foglia-doro.com or explore at www.foglia-doro.com

Bespoke floral compositions for weddings, celebrations, tablescapes, homes & corporate spaces · Bangalore, India · UAE