Emma and Dan's stylish navy blue and ivory Cooling Castle Barn wedding

 

 
When we met with Emma and Dan, it was very clear that their wedding had to be stylish and elegant.  Their timeless colour scheme was navy blue and ivory and Emma liked a soft and pretty, realtively neat style.  They married in Bexley with a reception at Cooling Castle Barn last November and whilst people tend to assume that dark blue flowers are difficult to source, they are in fact relatively easy at that time of year thanks to eryngium thistle and viburnum tinue.  We teamed these beauties with roses, spray roses, tulips, ranunculus and oriental lilies for a very striking wedding.

Emma is very petite and slim and hence her shower bouquet had to be designed with that in mind, so that the bouquet didn't wear her!  We kept to a slimline profile and used just roses, spray roses, ranunculus, eryngium and viburnum, with very light foliage.  The handle was wrapped in ivory satin ribbon with a neat navy bow at the top.

For Emma's bridesmaids, we used the same flowers, but combined them into hand-tied bouquets which were also wrapped to match the bridal bouquet.

For Dan, we chose a striking rose buttonhole with viburnum tinus berries and eryngium to match Emma's bouquet and then used spray roses for the rest of the boys.  Mums' corsages followed the floral theme of the wedding but with detailing added to match their chosen outfits.

For the top table at Cooling, we designed a central cascading arrangement using all the flowers used elsewhere and then added some empty vases to take the bridesmaids' bouquets along with votives, tealights and lots of lovely sparkly clear and blue crystals to add colour to the front of the table.  We also added roses and ranunculus to the place settings to finish it all off.

For the guest tables, we provided central mirror plates and large martini glass vases filled with fairy lights and navy blue sisal.  Into these we placed arrangements designed to match the rest of the wedding.  We thought they looked really striking and pretty and so did Emma and Dan...here's what they said when they spotted their flowers on our Facebook page... 

These are our flowers!! Beautiful and smelt amazing!!! Thank you so, so much for all your hard work and brilliant passion from the moment we met you two years ago. We couldn't have got better flowers! xx

Katy and James' soft and elegant Chiddingstone Castle wedding

Being so chilly in the studio this morning, I decided we need to think ahead to warm early summer days and to remind us, here is the beautiful June wedding of Katy and James from last year.  Katy and I communicated by telephone and email and planned all her wedding flowers without meeting face to face and within a month of the wedding due to time constraints and logistics.   It's always a little nerve wracking not meeting my couples in advance, but I need not have been worried as they loved all their flowers on the day.

The brief was for a soft, elegant and romantic set of flowers in very muted shades of pink, cream and ivory.  Perfect for the gorgeous Chiddingstone Castle.  We designed Katy's bouquet to include roses, peonies, ammi, freesias, lisianthus and bouvardia with light aromatic foliage such as rosemary and eucalytpus.  We wrapped the stems with ivory ribbon with a small lace bow at the top to tie in with the lace overlay over her beautiful gown.

Katy's bridesmaids wore pewter grey knee length dresses and so we decided that a smaller version of Katy's bouquet would give a perfect pop of colour against the dresses.  For her 8 and 9 year old Flower Girls, we used the blowsiness of a single peony with light foliage as their bouquets.  Who thought a single stem could look so good!.

The boys wore elegant and classic rose and spray rose buttonholes with light foliage, with James' being ivory and the rest of the boys having a pale pink La Belle rose.  Mums' corsages matched the rest of the flowers with hints of pink to tie in with their outfits.  They also received thank-you bouquets to match the wedding flowers.

The top table in the Great Hall was dressed with a selection of mismatched vases and jugs filled with flowers to match the wedding as was the mantelpiece.

 

The guest tables had enamel or ceramic pitchers / jugs filled with bouquets and with additional smaller vases placed around the jugs to ensure several levels of flowers and texture.

We know that Katy and James had a wonderful day and we thank them for sending the photos across.  I now feel much warmer and have a craving for peonies!! 

Michelle and Rob's beautiful yet rustic wedding at Cooling Castle Barn

I was just searching the blog earlier for a wedding to show to another prospective bride and knew that she'd love Michelle and Rob's style (as did I) so I was amazed that I hadn't actually blogged this little beauty!  So despite being months late, here is their wedding in all it's glory!  It was a truly beautiful collection of pale green and ivory and included stocks, bouvardia, astrantia, guelder rose, waxflower, trachellium, gypsophilia, veronica, trachellium, chincherinchee, penesetum, freesias, daisies, amaranthus, rosemary, eucalyptus and more....pretty, fragrant and very English.

Michelle chose a natural, spriggy and textured bouquet in a very "just picked " style for herself and then all white gypsophilia bouquets for her bridesmaids.  Each was tied with hessian with a small lace bow over the top.

The boys buttonholes were equally soft using greentrick, waxflower, chincherinchee, daisies and rosemary for Rob, then omitting the daisies for the Best Man and then scaling them down to gypsophilia and rosemary for the rest of the boys, and just daisies for Flynn, the Page Boy.  Mums' corsages also took on a natural feel and it all worked so well together.

The ceremony barn looked so so pretty for Michelle's entry...we lined her route with pitchers of flowers to match all the wedding flowers, interspersed with hanging jars of gypsophilia.  We added hessian bows to the dais and the stairs.  For the celebrant table we added a rustic arrangement in a piece of driftwood and a jar of gypsophilia wrapped in hessian. 

For the top table, we provided a range of jars and earthenware containers, some with hessian attached and all filled with gorgeous soft flowers to match the wedding.  We added some small blocks of wood to give additional texture and height and left a couple of empty jars for the bridal bouquets.  We also dressed the plough behind the top table with a faux blossom garland and fairy lights.

We then provided a pitcher full of flowers placed on woodblocks for each of the guest tables, each surrounded by a few additional jars of flowers.  We dressed the beams with fairy lights to finish the look.

I loved every minute of this wedding from planning, through preparation to set-up and seeing the photos afterwards.  I know I'm a sucker for green and white flowers (I had them at my wedding) but I think you'll agree that they are stunning in their simplicity.  I'm a little embarrassed (but also very proud of the team) to include the following note that Michelle emailed over to me the day after her wedding....it brought tears to our eyes...

Hi Amanda. 

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 

The flowers and floral displays were absolutely stunningly breathtaking. Incredible. Amazing. I honestly can't find the right adjective. Its like you were in my head as its what I imagined our day to look like but so so much more. 

From the moment I saw your portfolio and displays, I knew you had to be our florist. First and foremost, thank you for putting us at complete ease. In your beautiful home, not just professional but fun, You speak with such passion, joy and confidence that it wasn't hard to put every faith in you. You took your time to get to know us and really reflect exactly who we are and created a beautiful, romantic and simply elegant feel to our day. You took a small idea and made our big day. Thank you so much. We had no end of compliments and I think you're fabulous. 

I'm a very happy and very lucky girl.  

I will always recommend you to any bride to be. They'd be mad not to have you. 

Thanks so much x all the very best x

Mich x

Enjoy!