I got this hybrid tea last year on the Lowe's clearance rack, and I am very glad I did. The blooms are beautiful, large, and long lasting. The fragrance, while very pleasant, is not as strong as described on the Star website (www.kordes.us). I'd describe it as moderate. I agree with others that the foliage is very clean. It should be happy in both spray and no-spray gardens (although perhaps there might be strains that would prey more successfully on this plant in other areas). The plant didn't drop any leaves whatsoever during winter here (by contrast, most of my other roses lost all their leaves or at least some), which suggests that it would likely be hardy in colder climates. Here is the very good summary of Wedding Bells in the 'Roses Without Chemicals' book: https://books.google.com/books?id=HLiNBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA236&lpg=PA236&dq=roses+without+chemicals+wedding+bells&source=bl&ots=YJdV-8Fk0L&sig=vaul7e7yJGUFHBWdhGOnjBqUwbY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiilMzv3b3bAhVLwVQKHYBbA9QQ6AEITTAJ#v. I highly recommend this rose.

As the person at Newflora who does the ratings there is so much to say about disease resistance. You are right it is hard to test every location. We know there are at least 12 races of black spot and I think probably more across N. America. The other things I find to affect disease resistance in a particular plant is stress whether it be drought, lack of fertilizer, a hard winter, wrong soil pH can also affect the disease resistance. I would compare it to a person being more susceptible to colds when they are run down or stressed. In one of the threads on this site I mentioned Brothers Grimm had shown black spot in the Midwest but we have never seen it any other place in the world. I can't explain it, but I do believe it had a very bad black spot in this trial location. What we do before we introduce a rose is send it to trial sites across N. America to see the disease tolerance. Kordes also widely tests the roses in Europe. We run our trials with no sprays and try and promote disease by leaving diseased plants in the field and overhead watering to promote black spot. I have strong mildew at my trial site in spring and again in fall. We work very hard to try and deliver roses with excellent disease resistance. That said as we work hard at creating disease resistance roses the fungus is also busy mutating and changing. I don't think we will ever create a perfect rose or if we do the fungus will eventually find a way around it. Realistically I think the way to look at roses is to see if it can maintain health through the summer and maintain at lease the upper 70 percent of the foliage until fall with no spray. In fall as roses start to shut down for the season there may be more disease, but with just a little time left I don't worry about this. The test is that you enjoyed the rose and did not need to spray fungicides to have a great looking rose for the season. A few leaves with spots should not be too great a factor. With mildew if there is a little leaf wrinkle I know it has some susceptibility. but it is keeping the foliage and will be all right when climate conditions change. If it destroys the leaves and ruins the buds, well then it is not something we would introduce. The reason I follow this site is to get feedback on how the roses are performing in a wide geographic area. I learn a lot and if I have something helpful to add when there are questions I do comment. I learned something on this post because Beth's report on Savannah is the first time we have heard of black spot on Savannah. I hope it is transitory for you Beth because this is one of my favorites. Greenburgroses if you are in the south then Wedding Bells has been performing really well on disease and bloom. Plum Perfect is really doing well in the south, but I am not sure about its vigor in the north. We have not finished trials. We introduced PP for southern gardens as part of the Sunbelt series. Poseidon is healthy in the south although tending to be tall. If you buy it you should prune it hard (to 2 feet) in the late winter to maintain it at 3.5'. Savannah is doing well in the south (except at Beth's house :) ) It won awards at Biltmore no spray competition and also did well at the trail at thee U. of Georgia Athens. Wishing very good results with your rose garden.

sad to see that none of you are having much success with Wedding Bells- I'm really happy with mine. It did take awhile to get going, though. I bought it as a grafted bareroot, potted it up and it took off in a phenomenal way, and seemed to be sailing through extreme temps (so much so it got given "hottest spot in the yard place") until one heatwave proved too much and it got badly burnt. At that time, it hadnt flowered yet (a bit late compared to the other roses) but I put that down to it being a late starter/ wanting to grow rather than bloom at first. It took about a year to properly recover, but was so clean/healthy I decided to put it in the ground, and its done really well. Had it 3 ish years now, and so far it never gets any Blackspot or mildew, (not at all, and both are endemic in my garden) stays a nice roundish shrub shape, and now in mid winter, is one of only two roses in my garden that still has all its leaves. And it has 4 blooms on it! sadly its prolly too cold here for them to open now. Admittedly it still seems to start blooming a bit later than the other bushes, and the blooms do take forever to open, so the bloom cycle is a bit slower but then again they last really well. I cant get over how amazingly healthy it is, so I'm happy to keep it; judging on behaviour so far, I figure the blooming will improve with age.

I picked up my 18 David Austin roses Friday - got 13 planted. Regan roses arrived Feb. 1 - hope to get all of them planted tomorrow along with the Austins. My 4 Heirloom roses will arrive Monday. The DA roses are very healthy, good root systems, healthy canes......cant wait to see them start leafing out. Ordered way more than I should but getting my pot ghetto organized - looking forward to seeing everything leaf out, make buds and bloom. My 2019 Arctic Blue already has 3 pretty buds! Spring is coming early this year.