Vicky and Nigel's wedding at Turkey Mill

Photo courtesy of www.davidfenwick.co.uk

 

We're running a little behind with our blogs due to workload at the moment, so it's taken until now to write about Vicky and Nigel's lovely wedding in early July.  Sorry about that, but better late than never!  It was a fabulous vintage inspired wedding using soft, natural English country garden flowers in shades of dusky pink, ivory / champagne, lavender and lilac with lots of scent. We chose roses, delphiniums, lavender, astilbe, astranta, scabious, hydrangea, lisianthus, freesia, veronica, sweet peas, waxflower, rosemary, eucalyptus and lots of other soft and pretty flowers.

Vicky is a very pretty and slim bride who chose a lovely very fitted ivory gown featuring a lace overlay, and will have looked truly stunning...a magazine bride!  She had chosen soft, flowing champagne dresses for her bridesmaids with seed pearls around the neck.  As a result, we decided on very natural, slightly random just-picked styles of bouquets which worked very well with the flowers chosen and the overall style.  We tied Vicky's flowers with lace to tie in with her dress, and jsut used a simple champagne ribbon tie for her bridesmaids.  They all looked very relaxed and happy when we dropped off the bouquets that morning....mind you, so would I if I had Marty the Camper Van coming to take me to the wedding (so jealous!!!) and a perfect colour for the dresses!  What a perfect combination in the photo that Vicky and Nigel sent across....gorgeous bride, handsome groom and lovely camper van!

Photo courtesy of www.davidfenwick.co.uk

 

 

For Nigel, we decided to use a La Belle rose along with chincherinchee, astrantia, veronica, lavender and foliage for a very textured buttonhole.  For the rest of the groomsmen, we omitted the rose and veronica.  For the Mums, we then used spray roses, astrantia, chincherinchee and lavender for their pretty textured corsages.

For the Garden Room at Turkey Mill, we simply dressed the celebrant table with a soft, natural, full and flowing arrangement using all the flowers used elsewhere.  We loved the order of service that Vicky and Nigel had designed featuring a very appropriate tandem...perfect.

For the wedding breakfast, we dressed the top table with a long, low and flowing arrangement and added empty vases either end to take the bridesmaids' bouquets.

We then added a random range of vintage pots, jars, teacups, tea caddies, cake plates etc to each of the tables each with a soft mix of flowers included.  Again, we loved the vintage postcard table names...so evocative and unusual.  And what a lovely table plan...how many places would we love to go?

 

 

We couldn't leave without including a few photos of the yummy cakes which our friends at Creative Cakes provided...so pretty and we loved the little butterfly biscuits added in between...they all looked yummy.

 

We know Vicky and Nigel had a perfect day...they'd put a lot of thought into the detail and into making sure everything worked together and it looked so lovely.  As they are such a lovely couple, I'm sure the photos will have been picture perfect.  We wish them all the very very best for their future together.

Emma and Jamie's wedding at Cooling Castle Barn

The most nerve wracking time for us is designing flowers for friends and family... you might think it would be easier as we would have more access, but I can assure you it's not.  This was true for Emma and Jamie's wedding as Emma is the sister of Claire, one of our florists. Not only did we pile on extra pressure for ourselves, we were minus the skills of Claire who had bridesmaid duties to perform.  However, Emma and Jamie are two of the most lovely and laidback people ever...so easy to work with.  Despite Emma not really knowing an awful lot about flowers, she trusted our judgement (with back-up from Claire) and pretty much left us to it.  We knew that the look needed to be soft, pretty, glamorous and classic and knew their colour scheme was purple / aubergine, dusky pink, green and ivory.  We therefore chose roses, bouvardia, chincherinchee, sweet pea, lisianthus, hydrangea, freesia and veronica along with scented foliages including flowering mint, rosemary and eucalyptus.

For Emma's bouquet, we went for a textured mix of the chosen blooms, ensuring we graduated them down through the bouquet to avoid it being too "flat".  We simply tied the stems with ivory organza ribbon and finished the whole look with a pretty brooch.  She looked truly gorgeous and radiant as you can see in the photos kindly provided by Doug and Sheila at www.style-photography.co.uk

For Emma's two elder bridesmaids we provided a hand-tied textured bouquet using a range of the blooms used in Emma's bouquet, but using more ivory than colour to contrast against their dresses.  For Abigail and Erin, Emma's lovely daughters, we provided small spriggy posies for them to carry, although I'm not sure Erin was particularly keen on carrying hers!  Don't they all look fab...and talk a matching family smile!  Also, what a garden to be photographed in....stunning work by Emma's Mum and Dad!

For Jamie, we designed a special buttonhole in a silver boutonniere using an Amnesia rose along with chincherinchee, veronica, eucalyptus and rosemary.  The rest of the boys wore textured spriggy buttonholes of chincherinchee, veronica, rosemary and eucalyptus.  We followed this theme through for the Mums and Nans and personalised them to match individual outfits.  Thank-you bouquets were also provided for the Mums to match the theme (not photographed).

To welcome guests into the smaller barn, we added a birdcage "post box"to the coffee table, which was moved over to the gift table later in the day. 

We then added a low arrangement to the front of the celebrant table for the signing of the register.

For the main barn, Emma and Jamie wanted an immediate impact and had seen candelabras we had provided before at Cooling Castle Barn, and decided this was the look they wanted.  We therefore dressed the tables with a tall elegant silver candelabra with a full pretty softly trailing arrangement of roses, hydrangeas, spray roses, freesias, bouvardia, lisianthus, veronica, alchemilla mollis, mint, rosemary and eucalyptus.  As Cooling Castle Barn don't allow candles for somewhat obvious reasons, we used battery operated dinner candles to ensure extra flicker!


BEFORE.....

AND... AFTER!

For the top table, we decided on a slightly different table dressing.  Rather than a single trailing arrangement in the centre, or smaller candelabras at either end, we provided three more compact cylindrical arrangements which we evenly spaced out at the front of the table, and then "joined" the three sections with hydrangea florets and Smart Candles.  We finished the place settings with single purple veronicas.  We think it looked really nice.

We then finally added flowers to the cake and cake table to match the rest of the wedding.

Having been worried sick about getting everything right for Emma (and for Claire as our best informed critic!), we needn't have worried as Emma loved the bouquets and especially the scent.  And evidently we reduced both Emma and her Mum to tears as they entered the barn for the first time.  Emma said it took her breath away which is just what we had hoped for. 

Having seen all the photos from Style Photography, it clearly was a day filled with fun, love and laughter.  I don't think there is a single photo of Emma and Jamie together where they're not laughing...what a perfect wedding.  Enjoy!