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.

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!!