Bride adds a sweet touch to bouquet

In doing so, her floral adornment also showed more than a nod towards Grace Kelly, who carried a small bouquet made up of sprigs of lily-of-the-valley for her wedding bouquet.

Kate’s bouquet was designed by Shane Connolly and draws on the traditions of flowers of significance for the Royal Family, the Middleton family and on the language of flowers, thought to be an interest of the bride-to-be.

The bouquet may be small, but the tiny blooms echo the delicate lace on the bodice of the dress.

Kate’s bridal flowers were also thought to contain a touching tribute to her husband-to-be with the inclusion of the sweet william.

Tradition dictates that, for Royal weddings, the bride’s bouquet contains a sprig of myrtle from the original myrtle bush planted by Queen Victoria at Osborne House, Isle of Wight, in 1845. But it also poignantly contains a sprig from a plant grown from the myrtle used in the Queen’s wedding bouquet of 1947.

Almost 30,000 flowers, most taken from Windsor Great Park’s Valley Gardens in Surrey, adorned the abbey yesterday, including azaleas and blossoms.

Artistic director of flowers, Shane Connolly, said beforehand: “The theme is that everything is from the estates, that everything is English, that everything is seasonal, and all along Catherine has asked that it’s just all neutral colour-wise.”

Connolly was also responsible for creating the “avenue of trees” that lined Kate’s path towards her groom in Westminster Abbey yesterday.

Six field maples and two hornbeams flanked the route to the altar as part of Kate’s own floral plans. The trees will be planted out later so will not go to waste, and all will be ecologically sound, in keeping with the horticultural philosophy of William’s father, Prince Charles.

Wedding florists say the choice of white, green and cream foliage reflects the bride’s English country style.

Large containers of green cuttings arrived early at the abbey in central London yesterday from the royal estates of Sandringham and Windsor.

In the language of flowers, sweet william means gallantry, lily-of-the-valley means return of happiness, hyacinth symbolises constancy of love, while myrtle is the emblem of marriage and love.

There is also ivy for fidelity; marriage, wedded love, friendship and affection.

Myrtle was carried by Queen Victoria’s daughter, Princess Victoria, in 1858, to signify the innocence of the bride.