Natalie and Alex's winter tipi wedding

On one of the coldest mornings of the winter so far, we provided the flowers for Natalie and Alex's lovely wedding in Limpsfield with a reception in tipis in Oxted.  Natalie came to us via a recommendation from a former bride's Mum who goes to the same church, so once again word of mouth worked well.  When we met Natalie in the Spring, we ended up talking about soft colours and very natural styling and flowers as Natalie didn't want her wedding to be Christmassey.  However, in the end her six bridesmaids chose burgundy dresses and hence we needed to change the flowers to work alongside them.  As Natalie wanted to avoid a festive look we used a fresh green and ivory colour scheme with hints of the burgundy accent colour.  It worked so well and was seasonal without suggesting Christmas.

Natalie's bouquet was a very soft and natural graduated hand-tie of white lilac, ranunculus, roses, waxflower, spray roses, thlaspi, trachellium, hypericum, anenomes, paperwhites and rosemary.  It was wrapped in ivory organza with accents from the lace used in Natalie's gown used on the stems to finish.  The bridesmaids all carried smaller versions of the bridal bouquet and we wrapped the stems in an ivory lace ribbon to bring in the lace accent.

For the groom's party, we provided textured buttonholes to follow the more natural theme set by the girls' bouquets with Alex wearing a rose with ranunculus, hypericum, rosemary and eucalyptus and the rest of the boys having burgundy ranunculus instead of the rose.  We then provided corsages for the Mums and Nans.

At the church, the candleholders were attached to each of the central pews for advent and we dressed them with a little ivy and a hanging vase full of flowers to match the wedding.  It all looked so pretty and understated.  We then added a full rustic heart to the triple lychgate which gave a fitting welcome to guests.  Finally we made lace effect confetti cones filled with fresh rosepetals and stacked them in a hessian dressed crate.

Natalie had chosen tipis for her reception and had three adjoining each other, one for the bar and entrance, one for the reception, and one for the dancefloor.  They were warm and welcoming and filled with lots of little details that were sure to make for a wonderful wedding day.  We loved the rustic wood bar, the firepit for toasting marshmallows and all the wonderful wine and champagnes sounded pretty yum too.  As Kalm Kitchen were the caterers, we know the food will have looked as well as tasted lovely and we helped by providing  a range of flowers to use on the inventive canape trays.

For the tables, we added a tall cream candelabra draped in ivy with a soft, full and rustic styled arrangement on top of half the tables.  We then added rustic or lace wrapped vases around the base to tie everything together.  For the rest of the tables, we used enamel pitchers filled with soft hand-toed arrangements each surrounded by other rustic vases.  We provided a very rustic crate for their wedding cards and dressed it with hessian and flowers which looked lovely. We also provided some rustic wood blocks for Natalie to use to serve homemade mincepies later in the evening.  What a lovely idea.

 

The whole of this wedding was full of details and lots of thought and planning.  We know that Natalie's Mum had spent a long time planning how the garden would look, even down to ordering a new house sign for outside the gate!  Whilst I am sure it was stressful at times, it made for a beuatiful wedding which I'm sure every guest will have loved...time for Christmas now and the next set of celebrations!  We hope everyone has a lovely time.

Laura and Ben's rich, warm winter wedding at Cooling Castle Barn

 
Well as we're heading rapidly to Christmas, I decided I would include a very recent wedding showcasing beautiful red roses.  Laura had chosen black lace dresses for their bridesmaids and wanted to contrast this with red roses.  As we knew that Cooling Castle Barn would have their Dickensian Christmas Decorations in place, we decided to work alongside this and design arrangements that stood out without competing.

We chose the luxurious large headed and scented Red Naomi rose along with Red Sensation Spray roses and Skimmia Rubella along with ivy and very light foliage....nothing more, nothing less which goes to show that you don't have to include lots of flower varieties to give a big impact.

Laura chose a large hand-tied red rose bouquet that we suggested we edge with a neat collar of ivy to contrast against dresses.  We wrapped the stems in lace and added a brooch to finish.  Laura had eleven attendants of different ages (7 adult and 4 juniors) and she wanted them to have red rose bouquets just like hers.  We therefore made smaller versions using the large headed Red Naomi roses for the elder girls, and smaller spray rose versions for the juniors, all of which were wrapped in lace.

For the Groom's party, we provided elegant Red Naomi buttonholes with ivy and red spray rose buttonholes for the page boys, hence following the lead of the girls.  We also provided corsages and thank-you bouquets for the Mums.

As Cooling Castle decorations were so prominent in the reception barn, we decided to simply add two rosebowls of flowers to the celebrant table to feature in the signing of the register.

For the reception, Laura and Ben were at capacity in terms of the number of tables, so we decided that given the number of tables, and the Christmas decorations, we would be better choosing lower tablecentres that were still striking.  We designed silver rosebowls overflowing with roses, spray roses and skimmia for each table and surrounded them with votives containing tealights, strings of pearls and dried red rosebuds. 

For the top table, which was a circular table right in the centre of the room, we added a rosebowl to match the other tables and then added additional vasses full of flowers around the outside along with the pearls, tealights and dried rosebuds. 

The yummy looking Belgian Chocolate cake with cascading roses was made by our friends at

Creative Cakes and we added to the table with pearls and rosebuds to finish.

We all loved this wedding as it was lovely working with such a rich and luxurious brief.  We're really pleased with the way it worked out in Cooling and we hope Laura and Ben had a fab day.  Special thanks have to go to Carrie, Laura's bridesmaid and a half who kept me in the loop with changes and should be hired out as a professional bridesmaid!