Michaela and Ali's gorgeous wedding at Cooling Castle Barn

Any wedding featuring orchids and roses is bound to be gorgeous and Michaela and Alistair's was definitely no exception!  Using a palette of ivory and pale pink, with a fab couple, gorgeous bridal party, beautiful venue and lots of lovely finishing touches, this was always going to be a fave of ours.  We love working at Cooling Castle Barn for every wedding and particularly liked the way the downlighters picked up the detail of the flowers and the flowers in the stem of the vases.

For the ultimate glamorous bouquet, Michaela chose an elegant teardrop cascade of white phalaenopsis orchids with silver grasses and diamantes along with a butterfly brooch to finish.

For her attendants, Michaela chose pale pink, champagne and ivory rose bouquets with silver bear grass and spriggy diamantes, with her chief bridesmaid carrying one that was larger than the others.  We wrapped them all in ivory ribbon with a pale pink crossover to match their dresses.

Ali wore a beautiful phalaenopsis orchid buttonhole to match Michaela's bouquet whilst the rest of the boys wore pale pink rose buttonholes with silver grasses to match the bridesmaids.

For the ceremony, Michaela and Ali decided to keep their guests guessing about the colour scheme and chose a very elegant all ivory floral theme for the Fathom Barn.  We added a long and low arrangement to the celebrant table full of roses, lilies, orchids and other seasonal blooms.  We then dressed the dais with ivory organza and added a rose to each of the corner or end balustrades.  We then used our lovely silver tulip vases to frame Michaela and Ali taking their vows.  We filled them with a large hand-tied bouquet to match the celebrant table flowers and wrapped them lightly so they could double as thank-you gifts.  We also added a rose and bow to the bottom of the staircase to frame Michaela's arrival down the stairs.

For the wedding breakfast, we dressed the top table with a full length, slight messy foliage garland and added pink flowers to tie in with the rest of the colour scheme.  We then added a long and low and very full all ivory arrangement in front of the bride and groom.  We then finished each place setting with a personal orchid on the napkin

For the guest tables, we used a central mirror plate onto which we added a tall trumpet vase with orchids suspended down the stem.  We then added full top arrangements of lilies, roses, agapanthus, lisianthus and other seasonal flowers in pale pinks and ivory with silver bear grass, a few sparkles and then added some of the butterflies Michaela and Ali had provided as a finishing touch.

Our friends at Creative Cakes provided a lovely offset square three tiered cake dressed with orchids and grasses in sugarpaste.  Lovely.

We hope that Michaela and Ali had a wonderful honeymoon...we know they had to change their original plans due to unrest in Kenya, but hope that their wedding day and their honeymoon were truly magical.

Rehanna and Chris' winter wedding at Lympne Castle

For our last wedding of the year yesterday, we were lucky enough to work with the nicest wedding couple (and families) possible.  Rehanna and Chris have been (excitedly) planning their wedding for some time now and knew that despite it being so close to Christmas, they wanted a slightly different feel to the wedding.  They wanted lots of sparkle and candlelight and a feel of Christmas but also wanted a slightly Indian accent to the decoration in the Castle.  Overall though they wanted a very striking and contemporary feel to their wedding and used purple / aubergine as the main accent colour.

Rehanna's wedding dress was stunning!  She is very petite and gorgeous and any dress would look good, but Rehanna chose the most perfect heavy lace dress with a halter neck and a smallish train.  It fitted her so well and with her glossy dark hair up with a few small decorations, she looked amazing.  We chose a smallish contemporary styled shower bouquet using Picasso Calla Lilies and Purple Vanda orchids along with grasses and small rolls of aspidistra leaf.  It was perfect for Rehanna and not too overpowering against the beautiful wedding gown.

Rehanna's bridesmaids wore lovely colourful saris and hence we decided against flowers for them.  As for Chris, he looked wonderful in a slimline three piece grey suit with a single breasted slimline jacket piped in ivory.  So different and so striking.  The Best Man was also lucky enough to have a matching suit.  All the boys wore a single Picasso calla lily buttonhole with a few sprigs of grass and a roll of aspidistra at the front.  For the Mums, we used the vanda orchid used in Rehanna's bouquet on wrist corsages.  It all tied together so beautifully.

For the main reception room, Tania from Bows Chair Covers (www.bowschaircovers.co.uk) chose a perfectly matching sash for the chairs which  were dressed in ivory tailored covers.  Her bows are quite distinctive and always perfect...they set the scene for the contemporary table centrepieces which were placed on central mirrors and consisted of tall glass trumpet vases filled with a trio of Picasso Calla Lilies in purple water and with a tall silver "tree" arrangement on top.  The "tree" tops were made from corylus and birch sprayed silver with a touch of glitter.  The table names were then added on bauble shaped cards (all tables were named after the reindeers...all nine of them....can you remember them all?) along with glass baubles containing tealights, each with the name of one of the guests on the table written in purple on the front.  Very striking and perfect for the room and time of year.

For the top table we then provided a long, low intertwined arrangement of silver branches with calla lilies and orchids woven through.  We added orchid heads onto the napkins which had been ingeniously tied with multi coloured ethnic bracelets to bring in the Indian theme.  Beautiful and very memorable.

We provided a smaller version of the top table arrangement for the celebrant table (but forgot to take photos of it....!!).  Every window ledge was then dressed by Rehanna and her friends and family with artificial pine garlands, wreaths, vases of multicoloured baubles and more glass baubles holding tealights everywhere.  It looked magical and showed just how much time and thought they had put into all their planning.

We know they had the perfect day and looked so wonderfully happy together.  Their families and friends were all wonderful and complimentary and I think everyone had the perfect start to Christmas and Rehanna and Chris had the perfect start to their lives together.  What a way for us to end our 2011 wedding season.

Ruth and Jon's wedding at Leeds Castle

Given that a while ago we christened Jonathon as our "JGE" man of this year, we've been dying to do the flowers for Ruth and Jon's wedding.  We met them both after they attended Susan and Matthew's (a former JGE man! and a fab couple) wedding and liked the flowers.  We hit it off from the initial meeting and have loved working with them and their whole bridal party (lovely parents, great and gorgeous bridesmaids...)  It's what makes our job worthwhile and it was a great pleasure preparing the flowers for them.

As Ruth and Jon had gone for a "victorian lilac" style of colour for their bridesmaids, and Ruth loved the pale pink Sweet Avalanche and creamy Vendella roses, we wanted to add an accent colour.  Originally we went for a contrasting green, but had a last minute change (I had some spare Amnesia roses in the studio) and it worked perfectly.  All three roses were paired with grasses and eucalyptus and we added hydrangeas and anthuriums for the tables and the colours reminded us of parma violets and sugared almonds....yummy!

Bouquets were neat, crisp and pretty hand-ties of roses, with the Amnesia, Sweet Avalanche and Vendella being used in Ruth's bouquet and a pretty brooch added to finish the look.  For the bridesmaids, we did smaller versions of the bridal bouquet just omitting the Amnesia.

Buttonholes followed the usual theme, with the gorgeous Amnesia being used for Jon, and the Vendella for the groomsmen...having seen their elegant grey suits, it was a perfect choice.  Corsages for Mums were designed to match their outfits, with stronger pink dendrobrium orchids used for Anne, Ruth's Mum and black shaved feathers used for Jon's Mum to match her fascinator.

Fiona, Katie and the team at Leeds Castle were as efficient, friendly, helpful and fun to work with as ever, and made sure we could transform the Fairfax Hall quickly by placing large trumpet vases on central mirrors, filled with pale lilac / pink water and with a Sweet Avalanche rose floating in the water for interest when guests were seated.  On top of each, we placed a striking and pretty arrangement which guests were then lucky enough to take home with them at the end of the day.  As the ceiling is vaulted in the Fairfax Hall, we decided to use taller vases in the central section and then for the side tables under the lower eaves, we placed fishbowls filled with white hydrangeas onto mirrors, and then added the colour by using the purple hydrangea florets around the edge along with the gently flickering Smart Candles. 

The hydrangea florets were added to each other table and along the top table along with further Smart Candles.  A long, low and soft arrangement was added to the top table in front of Ruth and Jon and we finished the place settings with Amnesia roses.  We also finished the cake table (another gorgeous cake matching the colours perfectly by http://www.creativecakesbymaria.co.uk/) with hydrangea florets and a cluster of roses.  Thank you bouquets were provided (not photographed) and we know that Ruth's Mum decided to take the flowers out of the top table arrangements for further enjoyment (after all, there aren't many dining tables to match the length of the top table at Leeds Castle!

I know Alfie and Trish's photos will be gorgeous (http://www.alfietrish.co.uk/), but in the meantime Ruth has just sent across a few family photos so that we can include them in the blog....they say it all really....truly lovely.  A perfect wedding for a perfect wedding party.