We're back with flowers, flour and an award

Well, we haven't been away really....just not found the time to write a blog.  I know it's a lame excuse, but the weather has been too nice to sit at the laptop....we have been busy and promise to get back to regular blogging very soon.

So onto the flowers....here's a couple of  funeral pieces that we've loved recently....we've provided a lot more, but as these two are a little different, we thought we'd add the photos to give some inspiration.  Whilst you (and we) may not be lovers of gypsophilia, I think the open heart shows just how lovely it looks when massed together (although a warning to florists out there.....it takes an awful lot longer than you think!)  And the casket spray was another crescent design to fall across the middle of the casket leaving room for other tributes on top.....lovely colours, lovely flowers and just that little bit different.

And onto flour....The Lighthouse Bakery was the inspiration again, this time for European Baking....a day later and boxes full of Swedish Limpa, Italian Pane Pugliese, German Rye, French Pain De Campagne and Spanish Pan Gallego.....oh and a quick homemade Pizza for lunch.  Another wonderful day and the bread is gorgeous.  It now means that whenever I go anywhere for brunch, lunch etc I have to take bread as well as flowers.  Having a day doing something different is really good for the soul and I can highly recommend the Lighthouse Bakery as a perfect place to learn something new.

And finally, one of the team has won an award.....for Cutest Puppy (albeit with a photo from a little while ago).  However, the reason for mentioning it is to ask everyone who likes dogs to visit http://www.hoperescue.org.uk/ and have a look at the wonderful work they are doing to find dogs their forever sofas....you can even sponsor a dog for a gift which helps their significant costs.  Well worth a visit to the website, but get the tissues at the ready for some of the stories.

Off to plan and create lots of lovely designs for the very Royal weekend.....photos to follow shortly.

Emma and Tom's wedding at Cooling Castle Barn

Another lovely spring day dawned for Emma and Tom's wedding and we were lucky enough to be working with gorgeous seasonal tulips and willow.  They wanted a simple, unfussy and natural look for their wedding using seasonal flowers and had fallen in love with a frilly edged tulip that we had on display at a wedding fair.  Combined with the blue of the eryngium, it was a lovely mix of flowers to be working with.

For Emma's bouquet, we provided a hand-tied bouquet of appropriately named Honeymoon frilly edged tulips along with eryngium orion, spriggy pearls and loops of bear grass.  It will have looked lovely against the gorgeous dress Emma had chosen, with delicate, almost vintagey seed pearls, crsytals and embellishments that continued right down the back of the dress....gorgeous.  The simple bouquet will have allowed the dress to show itself off to best effect.

The bridesmaids were wearing simple and elegant full length navy blue satin dresses and we provided scaled down hand-tied bouquets of tulips, eryngium and grass.  For the flower girls, we designed simple "wand style" bouquets of three tulips and eryngium thistles plus grass loops.

Tom's buttonhole was a double Honeymoon tulip with eryngium thistle and grass with the Best Man and Dad wearing a single version.  The Ushers then had simple tulips and grasses.  The Mums' all fitted in with the theme using chincherinchee and eryngium with loops of ribbon added to tone with their outfits.

At Cooling Castle Barn, we provided a natural and simple arrangement of tulips (Honeymoon and french) along with willow, eryngium, chincherinchee and light foliage for the celebrant table.

For the main barn, we provided a long and low, natural arrangement for the top table and then designed lily vase arrangements of willow, tulips, eryngium and grasses.  These were designed to be simple, natural, seasonal and tied to be given to guests after the wedding.  To give additional interest to the tablecentres, we added testtubes to the outside of each vase, each containing a tulip and eryngium head.  Whilst simple, it gave a very different look to the overall arrangements.

With such a beautiful day and such lovely outfits, we know that it will have been a wonderful day for Emma and Tom and hope that it was everything they dreamed of.