Kirsten and Andrew's autumnal wedding flowers, with a hint of Australia

 On a very autumnal looking day, I thought I'd share with you the lovely wedding of Kirsten and Andrew.  We were providing the wedding flowers for Andrew's brother earlier this year at Leeds Castle, so Kirsten and Andrew came along to see what I could do for them.  They had chosen chocolate brown for bridesmaids' dresses so wanted some lovely vibrant colours to work alongside them.  With Kirsten hailing from Australia, we also decided to bring in some exotic accents with the use of protea, banksia and anigozanthus (kangaroo paw).

Kirsten's bouquet was a lovely hand-tied and very textured combination of roses, protea, calla lilies, berries, dahlia, orchids and greentrick with the very Australian eucalyptus foliage added.  We wrapped the stems in ivory to match her dress, but added a chocolate brown bow at the top to bring in the bridesmaids' dress colour.

We then scaled down the bridal bouquet for Kirsten's bridesmaids, using the same flowers but omitting the orchids and banksia.  We also wrapped them to match the bridal bouquet.

For the boys, we decided that Andrew needed to have an exotic cymbidium orchid buttonhole with a splash of additional colour added via the greentrick.  We then used roses, berries and greentrick for the rest of the grooms' party.

To frame the aisle for the wedding ceremony, we simply added proteas to the chair bows that were already in place.  In a relatively small room, this was incredibly effective and provided all the dressing that was needed.

For the reception, we decided to use a range of different vases and containers for the top table, interspersed with some empty vases tied with chocolate ribbon to take the bouquets.  We used flowers to match the wedding for all the vases and added orchid heads and votives with tealights in between.

For the guest tables, we decided on hurricane lamps containing church candles, surrounded with grouped and more contemporary arrangements of flowers that looked very striking indeed...grouping the flowers instead of distributing them equally helped them show off their beauty better and give a different look to the tables.

We hope that Kirsten and Andrew had an amazing day and have a fabulous globetrotting life together!

Sam and Lee's vibrant and striking Cooling Castle Barn wedding

 
I first met Sam and Lee at a Cooling Castle Barn Open Day and chatted for a short while.  I was thrilled when they cam back around that day and booked a consultation.  Little did I know that they would want a fabulous multi-coloured wedding and were happy to leave most of the flower choices to me!  I think it was a truly fab wedding and I know they had a wonderful day.

Sam knew that she wanted a more contemporary and unusual bridal bouquet and liked some of the more European style teardrops I had designed in the past.  We talked colours and flowers and decided on exotic flowers, vibrant colours, buttons and multi-coloured ribbons!  As the bridesmaids were in purple, the colours we chose were pink, yellow, purple, orange and lime green!  Fabulous!  We used a range of anthuriums, grevillia, orchids, greentrick, proteas, leucadendron, aspidistras and grasses.

As we'd gone to town on the colours for the bridal bouquet, we couldn't leave the bridesmaids out, so chose hand-tied textured bouquets using as many of the flowers as we could.  We wrapped each in a different colour ribbon, with a narrower contrasting colour criss-crissed over the top and then added trailing buttons.  We scaled down the elder bridesmaids' boquuets for the junior bridesmaid and wrapped her stems in purple with contrasting ribbon over the top with the trailing buttons.  Finally, we designed different colour germini "wands" for the Flower Girls with buttons added with the germinis and trailing over the top.  I loved the overall result and it makes such a striking set of pictures.

For the boys, we continued with the multi-coloured scheme and provided germini buttonholes with added greentrick and then scaled them down further for the pageboys.  We also provided lapel corsages for the Mums and thank you bouquets.

For the ceremony, we designed a contemporary, long and low arrangement to be placed on the celebrant table for the register signing, and also added a lovely exotic arrangement to the newel post at the bottom of the stairs to herald Sam's arrival.

For the reception, we dressed the top table with a central, long and low contemporary styled arrangement and then added multi-coloured tealights in votives along the front of the table and finished the overall look with buttons scattered in between.  To finish the look and make it a little more special, we added a purple Vanda orchid to each of the place settings.

For each of the guest tables, we used a large martini vase on a central mirror and filled each vase with a different coloured sisal to make each different and unique.  We added a full and exotic arrangement to the top using all the flowers we had used elsewhere.  We then placed multi-coloured tealights in votives around the base of the vases and finished the look off with a sprinkling of buttons.

Finally, we dressed the Plough with fairy lights along with the four corner beams in the barn for that added sparkle.  We thought it looked stunning...unique and striking and just a bit quirky....everything we love.  We know that the day was amazing and we wish Sam and Lee all the very very best for their lives together.