Shelley and David's Botley's Mansion wedding

When we first met Shelley at a wedding Open Day at Chiddingstone Castle, we knew her wedding would be gorgeous and glamorous (anyone who can spend the day walking around in heels that high gets my respect!).  Shelley booked us that day and we never looked back!  As it was our first time at the gorgeous Botleys Mansion in Surrey, we met her and her bridesmaids there to discuss her flowers.  Her colour scheme was coral and cream and she was keen to add lemon, peach and touches of orange into the mix to give a bright and summery feel to her August wedding.

For the bouquets, we designed a full, neat and soft bouquet of hydrangeas, roses and freesias for Shelley and then smaller hand-tied bouquets with much less of the coral colour (largely the Miss Piggy rose).  We then designed a floral "wand" using Miss Piggy at the centre for her Flower Girl. 

For the boys, David wore a Miss Piggy rose buttonhole to match the additional colour in Shelley's bouquet and the rest of the groom's party wore Vendella rose buttonholes to tone more with the bridesmaids.  We also provided smaller buttonholes for the very cute Page Boys and corsages for the Mums as well as thank-you bouquets.

For the ceremony, we very simply dressed the chairs with ivory hydrangeas through the bows in place.  We also added a circle of flowers to the memory table, which welcomed guests into the entrance hall.

For frame Shelley and David's entrance down the grand sweeping staircase into the atrium, we added arrangements to the bottom of the stairs.  We then dressed all the guest tables with a tall elegant candelabra complete with full arrangement on top using all the colours and wedding flowers along with other appropriate seasonal flowers such as dahlias and germinis.

Finally, Shelley and David opted for a Sweetheart top table which looked lovely and cosy...time for a catch-up in the midst of a manic day.  We dressed the front of the table with a selection of glass, silver and mercuried vases filled with flowers to match and then added an empty vase for the bridal bouquet.  With their additional Mr and Mrs sign, it filled the front of the table beautifully.  We also added roses to their napkins, just to finish.

We hope that Shelley and David had the day of their dreams...I know that Shelley had a poor start having picked up her daughter's bug and had only just finished being ill when we delivered her bouquets.  It's a bride's worst nightmare being poorly on her big day, so I hope that it passed over and Shelley enjoyed the day as planned.  I have seen a few photos but can't upload them for some reason, and I have to say that Shelley looked truly amazing...like a film star in her beautiful gown with immaculate hair and make-up....the rest of the bridal and grooms' party didn't look too shabby either!!!!  We loved the colours and loved being involved.  Hope you like this summery feel too.

Nina and Nigel's bright, natural and fun Chilston Park wedding

Photo courtesy of Ellie Mac photos

Photo courtest of Ellie Mac photos

Photo courtesy of Ellie Mac photos

Photo courtesy of Ellie Mac photos

Photo courtesy of Ellie Mac photos

When I first met Nina, I was struck by how much she wanted a fun filled day without too much formality.  She had researched lots of flowers and talked them all through with her Mother in Germany as she is a keen gardener.  Nina didn't want anything "matchy matchy" and to demonstrate this, she had bought a range of Liberty fabrics to be turned into dresses for her Flower Girls...they looked gorgeous.  Nina also wanted to use lots of texture as well as colour and had lots of lovely vases, vintage tins etc to use for the tables.

Photo couresy of Ellie Mac photos

Given that Nina had chosen a Jenny Packham dress (wowzer) and she was wearing her hair loose and natural, we designed a very textured and pretty hand-tied bouquet using a range of roses, (incl. Miss Piggy, Cherry Brandy, Vanilla Sky), dahlias, craspedia (which Nina loves!), hypericum, greentrick, alchemilla mollis, Kermit and eucalyptus.  We wrapped the stems in broderie anglais taken from her Mum's wedding dress (we actually used the cap sleeves from the dress for Nina's bouquet wrapping).

Nina had a Best Woman and a bridesmaid, with one wearing blush pink and the other wearing a bright coral.  We therefore decided to reverse the colours of the hand-tied bouquets we provided for each of the girls.  We used mainly lemons and greens against the coral dress and then incorporated the coral colours into the bouquet to work against the blush pink.  We then provided very small posies of dahlias, craspedia and greentrick for the Flower Girls which worked so well against their cute and informal dresses.  Each was wrapped to match the elder girls' flowers.

Photo courtesy of Ellie Mac photos

Photo courtesy of Ellie Mac photos

Buttonholes for Nigel, his dad and his sons were textured to follow the overall theme with Nigel having the Miss Piggy rose at the centre along with craspedia and Kermit.

For the ceremony, Nina and Nigel transformed the Orangery at Chilston Park by using lovely Chiavari chairs.  We added small glass vases wrapped in hessian and filled with a selection of the flowers used elsewhere.  We love the photos taken by Ellie Mac photos and provided by Nina and this is a lovely one of the pew ends.

Photo courtesy of Ellie Mac photos

Nina and Nigel had their reception and evening entertainment in the Coach House, which looked lovely dressed with the chiavari chairs again.  We added some of Nina's tins filled with flowers to the console table at the entrance to the Coach House, and we also added flowers to the tableplan frame, which was to be filled with hanging table tags.  Nina and Nigel had a wonderful set of stationery with their names, dates etc that covered everything on the day and gave it a very unified feel...we loved the wedding tea tins which worked so well with the vintage tins we were using on the tables as well.  All very lovely.

Photo courtesy of Ellie Mac photos

The tables in the Coach House were dressed with a random, mismatched set of teapots, tins, china, vases, cake plates, marmalade jars etc, some of which were Nina's and her Mum's and some of which were ours.  We crammed them full of flowers to match the theme, and in one case had to remove / alternate the number and type of vases we were to be using as we'd done too many!  A nice problem to have though. 

We think it looked really bright, interesting and different but don't take our word for it....this is what Nina and Nigel said with one lovely thank you following hot on the heels of the wedding and another accompanying the fab photos from Ellie Mac....


"First of all, a HUGE thank-you for the wonderful flowers you did for us. They were truly stunning and all our guests commented how beautiful they were. I love them too! I'll send you some wedding pics as soon as I can"


"I also wanted to say again how very, very happy we were with the flowers you did for us. They were my favourite part of the day (apart from my husband, obviously). Everyone commented how amazing my bouquet was - the colours were stunning! You just couldn't help smiling when you saw the flowers, they were informal and cheerful. And the table decorations for the reception were out of this world. I think you judged it just right. Thank you so much. "