As those of you readers who follow our blogs will know, we are lucky enough to be involved in a lot of weddings each year. We frequently find new "favourites" in the team and constantly wonder what our choice of flowers would be if we got married again (we'd end up carrying several bouquets each I think). However, it is rare that we are involved in a wedding where we really wish we had been invited and are reluctant to leave once we have set-up our flowers...Lois and Sam's wedding was one of these. The combination of the venue, the ceremony temple, the carousel horses, the overall detail and the wonderfully friendly family and guests along with the lovely Lois and Sam made us "wish we were there"!
Lois and Sam had taken the setting and the fairground feel of Preston Court and used it for their wedding theme...carousel horses featured on invitations, table plan etc, name places were "hook a duck"s and table names were Hoopla etc. All was designed with a vintage feel and we thus followed suit with the flowers. Whilst Lois and Sam wanted a very natural, soft and English feel to their flowers, they also wanted them to be bright and bold and just a little bit different. We used pink, purple and blue as the colours but made sure we had a broad range of colours in each palette, e.g. soft dusky pink through to strong pink and pale lilac through to strong purple. We used hydrangeas, dahlias, zinnias, astilbe, stocks, aconitum, gentiana, peonies, scabious and alliums along with soft natural foliage.
For Lois' bouquet we decided a natural textured overarm bouquet would compliment the theme and show off the fabulous dress she had designed for herself. Lois' gown had an oyster / champagne fitted top with a dropped waist into a raw edged ivory slightly deconstructed skirt . It was going to be truly fabulous and hence the overarm bouquet would bring colour and yet still allow the dress to be seen to the full. We managed to find some little carousel horse charms without Sam and Lois knowing and added one to the bouquets and also to Sam's buttonhole. We thought they were a perfect finishing touch.
Lois' sister was her bridesmaid and also had her dress designed for her using similar shades to Lois's dress. We therefore designed a smaller version of Lois' bouquet, again overarm, using less varieties of flowers but still keeping the colour and overall look.
For the boys, we kept the textured softer look and used Aconitum, veronica, scabious, gentiana and zinnia for Sam's buttonhole. It sounds a lot, but looked great. We also added the carousel horse charm to the stem of the buttonhole to match Lois. For the rest of the boys, we used ranunculus, gentiana and astrantia along with rosemary. Sam's Mum wore a toning corsage whilst Lois' Mum wore an ivory wrist corsage.
For the ceremony on Juliana's island, we provided two tall and unusual standard hydrangeas in terracotta pots with very natural bows added. These were placed in front of the wedding temple and subsequently moved to frame the entrance to the barn later. Their final destination was as unusual and longer lasting thank-you's for the Mums.
On the celebrant table, we provided a large enamel pitcher full of flowers and added a colourful bow and another carousel horse charm to the pitcher.
Within the barn, we used mistmatched vintage pots, jugs, vases, china etc and chose some of the bolder coloured items in our collection. We then added a selection to each table (some with carousel horse charms) and finished the overall look by adding hydrangea florets to the tablecloth for additional colour.
We loved the sweet and cake table Lois and Sam set out for their guests, especially the yummy looking macaroons (we're obsessed!) which were also given as lovely favours.
You couldn't hope to meet a nicer couple than Lois and Sam, and their friends and family were equally as lovely and welcoming to us. We know they had a great day, that the rain held off for them to have their wish of getting married outside and that everyone had fabulous fun. We wish them all the best for a wonderful future together and hope we can see some photos of them enjoying their inspirational day!
