Well what a weekend!!! We've been planning this wedding for a while, largely due to the logistics involved in providing all the flowers for a wedding in Cornwall. Thanks to our main suppliers, Metz (
http://www.metz.nl/) in Holland, we had the main flowers delivered directly to our wonderful apartment in the Carbis Bay Hotel. Whilst we had to take a few sets of flowers with us in order to get them open in time for the big day (e.g.cornflowers, anenomes, freesias), our main work began when we arrived in Cornwall and started working through the flowers provided by Metz.
Liz and Matt are a very special couple who have been dear to us for many years. We first provided flowers for Liz's sister Sue at Leez Priory in Essex years ago, and were thrilled to be able to provide the flowers for Liz and Matt in a very different setting. Both Liz and Matt would dearly like to live in Cornwall and have fallen in love with Sennen, Carbis Bay and the surrounding areas. Their style is very laid back, very natural and "undesigned". Their colour scheme was blue and champagne, but they wanted to add a splash of sunshine yellow and purple into the scheme. Soft, natural daisies were a particular request, for which we used Matricaria Camille although gerberas, germinis and eryngium thistle were the stars of the show. Matt and Liz left the flower choice to us, which is great fun, but nerve-wracking in case I got it wrong. Being by the beloved seaside, you will notice sand, shells and other seaside accents featuring within the wedding. And to add to the assault on the senses, I ensured there was a range of scents added in the form of mint, rosemary, freesia, lavender and eucalyptus.
One downside of this wedding was my now unnatural obsession with VW Camper Vans.....I so want one for my new company van....and when you see Lola and Lulu from Strawberry Leisure, I'm sure you'll agree....inspired wedding cars (and I think they'd make a great new van for us!)
Liz's dress was the most stunning Ian Stuart dress in champagne, with so much exquisite ruching and detailing. As a result, we decided to design a natural and textured overarm bouquet that worked with her overall style, and yet showed her dress off to the very best. For her bridesmaids, we designed a range of natural hand-tied bouquets using individually designed binding wire collars (looking a little like fishermans' nets) for the two elder bridesmaids, hand-ties for the younger bridesmaids and a pretty little posy for the lovely Flower Girl (who thought she had to keep her bouquet for the blessing next week, so popped it into the freezer overnight...how sweet!)
The boys looked fantastic in their specially designed waistcoats and we managed to vary the buttonholes for each group to add a few little extras. Lavender was added to many of the corsages along with rosemary and eucalyptus and the gerberas / germinis and eryngium were centre stage.
Very natural pew ends were added to the pretty and very small church in Sennen along with a small altar piece and a hurricane lamp arrangement to tie into the theme back at the Carbis Bay Hotel.
For the reception, we provided hurricane lamp arrangements using a range of flowers including Scilla, anenome, chincherinchee, trachellium, gerbera, germini, freesia, lavender, matricaria and a range of aromatic foliage, all completed by Cornish sand and a range of wonderful shells. We thought the tables were best finished with a sprinkling of shells.
For the top table, we provided a small central arrangement, then a random selection of vases with a range of the wedding flowers added very naturally. The fact that none of the vases matched worked particularly well.
We finished the outside terrace of the hotel with additional hanging natural arrangements along the balustrades for a final splash of colour.
So, despite many hours of planning and worrying, the weekend went really smoothly and the wedding day was amazing. I had my own personal photographer with me (
http://www.vincentbradyphotography.co.uk/), hence the range of photos I've been able to add to the blog. I had so much help from Victoria at the Carbis Bay Hotel, who was one of the most fantastic and committed wedding planners I've had the pleasure to work with and finally.....despite horrendous weather everywhere else over the bank holiday, we had the most perfect weather.....paddling was obligatory as was making sandcastles....who could believe it.
A perfect wedding for a perfect couple.
