Emily and Rob's wedding at Cooling Castle Barn

This weekend was the long awaited wedding of Emily and Rob at Cooling Castle Barn.  We met a long while ago to discuss ideas for Emily's wedding, and with the exception of a few tweaks, the final flowers were as originally discussed.  Emily had chosen a warm colour scheme of champagne, chocolate, gold and bronze and we matched the flowers to the colour scheme, using Vendella roses, brown, gold and ivory cymbidium orchids, natural willow and black tie leaves along with gold birch, some with touches of glitter.  Emily wanted plenty of light and sparkle in all her arrangements, and we added fairy lights wherever possible.

As Emily was wearing a stunning flowing slimline dress, we decided upon a slimline shower bouquet of cymbidium orchids, vendella roses along with touches of chocolate brought in via black tie leaves and willow.

For Emily's bridesmaids, we designed hand-tied bouquets of Vendella roses surrounded with chocolatey photinia leaves.  These toned beautifully with the champagne coloured knee length dresses with a chocolate sash and we wrapped the bouquets to match.  We also have to mention the stunning sandals Emily chose for the girls...beautiful and very high!

The buttonholes were very simple and comprised Vendella roses (with an orchid for Rob) and all with willow sprigs.  For the ladies, we designed corsages to match details of their outfits (gold leaves, chocolate brown touches of ribbon, or pearls).  We provided thank-you bouquets for the Mums, each designed to match their preferred flowers.

For the all important ceremony, we designed an arrangement for the celebrant table using orchids, roses, birch and willow along with hypericum berries and chincherinchee.  This was then to be moved to the centre of the top table.  We also added two tall vases either side of the dais to frame Emily and Rob taking their vows.

For the main barn and the wedding breakfast, we added a mirror to each of the guest tables and a tall glass vase filled with crystal fairy lights for added sparkle.  We added a full, yet very open arrangement to the top of each vase using Vendella roses, birch, willow, chincherinchee, black tie leaves and photinia leaves.  We also added fairy lights to each of the beams giving the final magical sparkle Emily wanted.

The overall look at Cooling Castle Barn was elegant and slightly wintery yet warm and sparkly.  The colours worked beautifully with the outfits chosen, and alongside the warm wood of the barn.  Overall, it was such a lovely elegant wedding, and having seen how lovely the bridesmaids looked, we can't wait to see how beautiful Emily looked in her dress. 

Leanne and Jason's wedding at The Grangemoor Hotel, Maidstone

We've been so looking forward to Leanne's wedding.  She had a lovely elegant theme of midnight blue and ivory, with hints of dusky pink.  This colour scheme works so well in the Grangemoor and matched in with Leanne's bridesmaids' dresses.  Being a hairdresser, we expected Leanne's hair to look good...but it was absolutely gorgeous!  Charlotte at Urban Hair and Beauty in Maidstone had styled Leanne's hair and it was gorgeous.  We didn't notice she was still in her jeans when we took the flowers to her as the hair was so good.  Can't wait to see the finished look as I know the whole bridal party was going to look great. 

For Leanne, we provided a hand-tied bouquet of Vendella roses, with some Amnesia roses added to bring in the pinky colour and with eryngium thistle added througout.  We kept foliage to just loops of bear grass and added a midnight blue bow to the ivory wrapped stems to bring in the colour of the bridesmaids dresses.

For the bridal party, we used an Amnesia rose and eryngium thistle for Jason's buttonhole so that he matched Leanne.  We then used the Vendella rose for the remaining buttonholes and designed ivory and black corsages for Mums with slightly smaller all ivory corsages for Nan.

The Grangemoor looked lovely and elegant with the chair bows and all the butterfly detailing on tables.  As ever, everything was ready for us well in advance at the Grangemoor and it was looking immaculate...we were even given china cups and a teapot for tea when setting up.....not many places we get treated so well.  Leanne and Jason had paid a great deal of attention to detail with butterfly names on glasses, butterfly names for tables and butterfly chocolate favours.  Jason was even checking everything was perfect on the morning of the wedding before getting ready for his big day!  We kept flowers very minimal on the tables which worked really well with everything else....we used fishbowls with blue gel pearls and floated Vendella roses and eryngium thistles around a pink floralyte.

For the top table, we added a long and low trailing arrangement using all the flowers used elsewhere along with mixed foliage.

Finally, we dressed the cake with a topper of roses, thistles and grasses and added a further wired section of flowers to the bottom tier to balance the whole look.

We know Leanne and Jason will have had a brilliant day and we look forward to hearing more about it in due course.  In the meantime, hope you all like the photos.

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.