When we first met Emma and Nick, we had a great time chatting about style and colour and how we could create a fun yet pretty Mad Hatter's Tea Party theme for their wedding. As they were to be married at the gorgeous Cooling Castle Barn in Kent we knew that we needed something with some height to work with the high ceilings. We also wanted to keep the theme a secret until the last minute and contain it to the reception rather than the ceremony.
Emma had chosen lovely dusky pink dresses for her bridesmaids and wanted to use this as a core part of her colour palette along with lavender, ivory and green. They both wanted soft and natural flowers including seasonal flowers such as tulips and ranunculus. We therefore decided upon a mix of roses, freesias, lisianthus, tulips, ranunculus, veronica and astrantia along with scented foliage such as eucalyptus and rosemary.
For the bridal bouquet we designed a hand-tied bouquet using more of the colour and then used more ivory and green flowers in her bridesmaids' bouquets to give maximum contrast. As a little surprise for Emma, we found a lovely little brooch with the White Rabbit, a fob watch and a teacup hanging from it and added it to the stems of the bouquet. We also added one to Nick's buttonhole ensuring they were both matching and giving a hint at the hidden theme for the reception.
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| Emma's soft and pretty bouquet |
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| A sneaky hint at the theme ahead on Emma's bouquet |
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| We couldn't leave Nick out with the added extras! |
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| The bridesmaids' bouquet - more ivory than pink |
Buttonholes and corsages were as always designed to complement the bouquets.
For the ceremony, we decided to try to "trick" the guests into thinking that a very vintage wedding was ahead by adding teacups and saucers and teapots to the registrar's table, all filled with lovely selections of the flowers used elsewhere.
After drinks and photos, the doors were opened and guests were welcomed to the Mad Hatters teaparty! We designed oversized, non matching teacups for the tablecentres with a very natural arrangement reminiscent of a garden. From each of these was added a Queen of Hearts rosebush style arrangement of a mossed ball complete with ranunculus topped off (excuse the pun) with a large and slightly mad top hat. Fabulous and appropriate tablenames were added to the brims.
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| Guest tablecentres |
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| Fabulously named tables...the hats all got worn later in the day! |
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| True wow factor! |
As Emma and Nick wanted a less formal top table, they decided on a circular top table with a few seats missing at the front to give everyone a clear view. We then used the oversized teacup style arrangement but with a full floral arrangement instead of the mossed balls. The obligatory top hat was added as per the other tables, and we loved the picture of the bride being the groom and vice versa...definitely the Mad Hatters. Place names doubled as favours and followed the theme with top hats full of love hearts.
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| Oversized naturally designed teacup tablecentres |
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| An oversized floral top for the "rose tree" |
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| Just look at the great tablename in the brim of the hat |
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| Great name cards and favours combined |
And whilst we can't claim any input apart from a few added flowers, this blog would not be complete without a photo of the stunning cake made by Emma herself...how fab is that, and Emma is a health professional, not a cake maker at all !
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| How great is this homemade cake...so inventive and brilliantly made by the bride herself |
Emma and Nick were the perfect wedding couple to work with...warm, fun, open and relaxed....and they looked stunning as well! We're not saying the wedding was without technical challenges....but we LOVED bringing their theme to life and being a small part of their special day.
Amazing Flowers and Bouquets
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