Lea and Dean's pretty Cooling Castle Barn wedding

We’re on a roll now with blogs after a bit of an absence! so today we are sharing with you Lea and Dean’s soft and pretty Cooling Castle Barn wedding.  Lea and Dean wanted a vintage feel to their wedding day and collected and used all their own vintage china for the place settings (not photographed I’m afraid as I left too early).  Cream, ivory, dusky and pale pink were the order of the day and we used soft and blowsy roses, hydrangeas, astrantia, bouvardia, freesias and lisianthus to create a textured and romantic feel.

Lea changed her mind about the original dress she had chosen and her second choice was absolutely gorgeous.  Lea chose an ivory gown with a full open lace back, narrow straps and a low v-front with the lace from the back brought around under the bust line and around the waist.  Gorgeous!

Lea’s bouquet was a hand-tied soft bouquet using all the flowers and colours we’d chosen and was designed to be textured but not spriggy.  All the flowers for the day were designed to be soft and pretty yet neat and relatively compact. 

Dean wore an Amnesia rose buttonhole to complement Lea’s bouquet and the remainder of the groom’s party wore Vendella roses as a contrast.  The Mums had soft and delicate corsages to match their outfits and also had thank-you bouquets provided to match the wedding theme.

For the ceremony, we provided a silver rosebowl arrangement on a central pedestal on the dais.  We then framed Lea and Dean for their vows with two large candelabra arrangements (minus the candles) placed each side of the entrance onto the dais.  We then finished the look with a vintage silver tea set filled with flowers on one corner of the celebrant table and a vintage china tea set on the other corner.  A final hydrangea with a lace bow at the bottom of the stairs completed the picture.

For the wedding reception, we decided on a mix of high and low tablecentres and placed tall silver candelabras on the four corner tables to frame the room.  We added large, domed arrangements to the top of the candelabras.  Lea and Dean decided against candles so we used the candelabras as elegant stands for the flowers in effect.  The remaining tables all had low silver rosebowls filled with flowers in a style to complement the other tables. 

For the top table, we continued with the vintage tea party idea and hence used different elements of  vintage china and silver teasets all filled with flowers.  We also added florets of hydrangea in between to finish off the overall look.

It was a super pretty, delicate and refined wedding which matches the lovely understated style of Lea and Dean and their families. We know they had a wonderful day and all the meticulous planning paid off with a wedding day to remember for all who attended.

Stefania and Tom's romantic Chiddingstone Castle wedding

 

Well it’s been a while since I’ve managed to get near the blog so there are lots and lots of weddings to catch up on.  We’ll not get around to blogging all of them, but over the next couple of months, hopefully we can find time to add a few lovely real life weddings for inspiration.  So to start with today, I thought  I’d include one of the August Bank Holiday weddings from Chiddingstone Castle.  This was the wedding of Stefania and Tom, a totally lovely and exceptionally glamorous couple who were a dream to work with. 

Stef and Tom wanted a very soft and romantic look to their wedding which works beautifully at the Castle.  Stef’s gown was a dreamy princess gown by David Tutera with sweetheart neckline and a lace overlay which truly will have wowed on the day.  Therefore the flowers needed to be soft and blowsy.  We chose a selection of roses (O’Hara, Amnesia, La Belle, White Naomi) along with large spray roses, hydrangeas, astilbe, gentiana, waxflower and bouvardia.  We wanted to add a touch of silver so used senecio, eucalyptus and also olive foliages which brought in Stef’s Italian heritage).

 

Having described the soft, romantic and very English feel we were hoping to achieve, you won’t be surprised to find we designed a textured and soft hand-tied bouquet in ivory, champagne, dusty and faded pinks and blue for Stef and wrapped the stems in lace.  We added pearl buttons down the stem to reflect the pearl buttons down the back of her dress.  For the bridesmaids who were wearing blue, we omitted the blue from the bouquet and kept everything soft and with a slightly “faded” palette.

The boys were given buttonholes to match the bouquets using the O’Hara rose that Stef loved. We added gentiana to Tom’s to differentiate it from the rest of the boys.  Mums had spray rose and freesia corsages with small details to match their outfits.

Stef and Tom married in the lovely Orangery and to dress the area we added wicker hearts that Stef had provided along with glass baubles with flowers, all of which we hung from the tree by the side of the aisle.  Teetering on the top of a stepladder throwing the ends of the ribbon over branches whilst my lovely colleague Claire walked away and refused to watch!!!, was interesting but we got their in the end!  We also added flowers to the dogs (as usual...well dogs need to feel special too!)

 

For the reception, we provided central enamel pitchers for each of the guest tables surrounded by jars / vases / vintage china all filled with flowers to match the wedding.  We also added votives with tealights which could be lit during the meal.  To finish off the look, we added strings of pearls randomly to the tables.

For the long top table, we used a random selection of jam jars with lace, vintage glass, vintage china, bottles and other containers all filled with flowers to match the wedding.  Some were placed on vintage books and pearls were draped throughout.

We followed the same theme through to the mantelpiece in the Great Hall with mismatched bottles, jars and china filled with flowers.  The overall look was soft, slightly eclectic and super pretty...just what you need from an English Castle.  It was a pleasure working with Stef and Tom and it’s always a great pleasure working with the wonderful team at Chiddingstone Castle...despite teetering at the top of the ladder, it’s always a relaxing and pleasant set-up for a wedding and we loved being there.