We try hard not to have any favourites amongst our weddings, and as flowers and themes are so varied it is hard to choose, but I have to say that Hannah and Hugh's wedding is the one I looked forward to most and is probably my favourite overall of this year. We met Hannah and Hugh and their family when setting up another wedding at Combe Bank School and have met several times to talk through ideas and designs. I've probably spent more time communicating with Hannah's lovely Mum Siobhan through the process for one reason and another and have enjoyed every second of working with the whole family.
Hannah and Hugh wanted a Winter Wonderland wedding with hints of Narnia. Everything was to be frosty and sparkly but not Christmassey as such. A sucker for winter weddings, Christmas and reindeers (yes Hannah and Hugh had a reindeer and sleigh!), this was always going to be one of my favourite weddings.
Hannah's dress was a stunning fitted lace dress with quite exquisite lace and her bridesmaids were wearing simple and elegant sapphire blue dresses. We therefore decided that the flowers needed to be textured, not too elaborate for bouquets and to keep largely to a green and ivory theme with hints of blue. Hannah luckily shares my love of smaller spring flowers and hence we used a selection of paperwhites, muscari, bouvardia, spray roses, chincherinchee, pussy willow, freesias, hypericum, trachellium and ranunculus along with snowy branches and silvered birch. Gorgeous!
For Hannah's bouquet, we used all the flowers mentioned above in a lovely textured hand-tied bouquet and wrapped the stems in lace. We added a few spriggy pearls and transluscent crystals for extra sparkle. As you can see the day dawned frosty and crisp (perfect!) and we made the most of the frosty morning for bouquet photos.
For Hannah's Maid of Honour (her lovely sister Naomi), we provided a small hand-tied bouquet of ranunculus and paperwhites with a few blue and ivory feathers, crystals and pearls. For the remaining five bridesmaids, we went for small tied posies of just paperwhites with ivory and blue feathers, crystals and pearls. Not only did they look lovely, they smelt divine.
For buttonholes, we wanted to stay with the smaller flowers and hence Hugh wore a buttonhole of pussy willow, chincherinchee, ranunculus and paperwhite heads. The remaining groomsmen wore the same style buttonholes minus the ranunculus and we scaled them down for the three Page Boys. We then provided corsages for the Mums and Grandmas and tailored them to their outfits.
The night before the wedding after the rehearsal at Combe Bank School, Hannah's parents hosted guests for dinner and we provided a lovely heart shaped door wreath to match the wedding flowers and also a table centre with raised tealight holders....a perfect clue to the wedding flowers.
And now onto Combe Bank School....to welcome guests, we dressed the alcoves in the entrance hall with tall silver candelabra wrapped in glittered and snowy ivy and with cluster of flowers added on. We added blue bows to bring in the bridesmaids' dresses and draped pearls. We then moved into the next hallway and added an arrangement at the bottom of the stairs.
For the chapel, we provided double bows on the pews with a natural cluster of flowers through the middle. At the base of each pew we added flickering battery operated Smart Candles for extra glow. We then dressed the altar with a soft and natural arrangement.
For the Adam Room, we added an arrangement to the mantelpiece along with two hurricane lamps containing gel beads and a candle. We also provided lacey confetti cones filled with rose petals in wire tiered baskets.
In the Ante Chapel, we designed some frosty trees with snowy branches and lit them with fairy lights (difficult to see in the lovely sunshine but would have sparkled beautifully later). We then dressed the windowledges with smart candles, petals and muscari.
To enter the ballroom for the evening celebrations, we designed a woodland style arch with ivy, branches, moss, icicles and fairy lights and added a cluster of mistletoe at the centre....well it is Christmas and it was a romantic wedding! We also couldn't resist adding some flowers to the sleigh, which Rudolph seemed keen to look at.
On the staircase down to the dining room, we added bows and flowers to the newel posts and then arranged a selection of vases amongst ivy and fairy lights on the windowsill. Each had a tied arrangement of flowers used elsewhere and each vase had some lace or ribbon attached.
Finally in the dining room, for half of the tables we provided candelabras entwined with frosted ivy and with clusters of flowers added on and finished with blue bows and pearls. For the other tables, we nestled a hurricane lamp with gel pearls and a candle in a floral surround. One table was for children only so we used a battery operated church candle and no hurricane lamps to avoid a naked flame and also glass.
For the top table, we used a candelabra entwined with ivy with blue bows finished with long lace trails to pick up on Hannah's dress. We added a full floral top amongst the arms of the candelabra and a few vases with hand-tied bunches of flowers at the base to finish it. It all looked so beautiful and the mix between higher tablecentres and lower ones was perfect in that room and with that many tables.
We hope you love the arrangements and styling as much as we do. Hannah and Hugh and all their family and friends were wonderful to work with and made the hard work so worthwhile. Hannah and her Mum put so much into planning the day, and Hannah even made her own wedding cake and sugar craft flowers. We know they will be extremely happy and we wish them all the very very best in their life together...it's been a privilege sharing a small part of their big day.
