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.

Kelly and Dan's wedding at Bearsted Church and Frasers Barn

 

 

When we first met Kelly and her lovely Mum, she was clear about the vision for her glamorous wedding.  She wanted white, silver and we persuaded her to have a touch of lime green as well.  She loves orchids and hydrangeas and just looking at her everyday style, we knew it was going to be a beautiful and glamorous wedding.  Unfortunately Kelly's original venue closed and left her at relatively short notice needing a new venue.  We suggested the lovely Frasers Barn and Lisa and her team there had the date free and held it until Kelly and Dan could view it (it was clearly meant to be!).  It was a wedding where fate definitely had a hand as lots of the original details changed (church, bridesmaids' dresses, hairdresser etc) and they ended up with the most perfect day.

I know we've said it before, but Kelly and Dan are a stunning couple and with their striking looks and fabulous taste, the wedding photos were going to be amazing (check out the initial family photos they sent across to us and you'll see what we mean).  Kelly had chosen a slimline lace dress with a sweetheart neckline and gorgeous train to show off her fabulous figure and we decided the best possible option for her bouquet was a long slimline orchid cascade bouquet with a few hints of lime green, bear grass and some additional sparkles.  We wrapped the handle in an offcut of her dress fabric and it all looked so lovely.  We wired silk phalaenopsis orchids for Kelly's hair so that they would remain fresh and gorgeous all day and all night long.  Having helped her find her hairdresser, we knew it was all going to be fabulous.

For Kelly's lovely bridesmaids, we had decided upon extended wrist corsages of phalaenopsis and dendobrium orchids, greentrick and chincherinchee along with lime tips and grasses.  Their dresses were a lovely graphite empire line design which were just perfect for them, despite being a last minute purchase after problems with the previous dresses purchased (the path of true love and a perfect wedding really doesn't run smooth all the time as you can see!).  We think they looked lovely and loved the design of the wrist corsages.

Dan and his groomsmen wore orchid buttonholes to tie in with the rest of the wedding, with Dan having a crystal added to his to tie in with Kelly's bouquet.  Mums had corsages of chincherinchee, dendrobrium orchids and lime tips with sparkles and ribbon loops to match their outfits.  We also provided colourful thank-you bouquets for them at Frasers Barn.

 

 

At Holy Cross Church Bearsted, we welcomed guests into the main porch with a large and full arrangement of hydrangeas, orchids, greentrick, anthuriums, delphiniums, bouvardia, palms and aspidistras.  We replicated this pedestal at the front of the aisle and then finished the aisle with pew ends of hydrangeas attached with graphite organza bows.  It looked so fresh, contemporary and yet opulent.  Perfect!

 

 

Welcoming guests at Frasers Barn was a lovely mirrored table plan showing the unusual arrangement of the guest tables all off a single central table in the marquee.  We dressed the central table on the runner with mirrored cubes of double stemmed tall planted orchids, with an additional orchid leaning against the corners to give reflections from the mirrored cubes.  Being a bit OCD, I had to make sure the stems of the orchids were alternating in direction through the centre line, but all in line when viewed from the side! (No-one else would notice but I wanted it to be perfect!)  Each was placed in between a globe crystal candleholder and we then added green hydrangea florets in between.  Each of the side guest tables were also dressed with orchids and hydrangea florets.

For the long top table, we used glass cubes filled with moss, and then added either orchid sprays or hydrangeas in the top.  In front of Kelly and Dan we provided an oblong vase filled with layers of moss and hydrangeas and with sprays of phalaenopsis orchids on top.  We then completed the look with individual orchid heads on the napkins.  It truly looked lovely.

Kelly also added additional touches such as my fave Pomegranate Noir Jo Malone candles, sparkly flipflops for tired dancing feet. hand-painted signs and personalised grey boxes for cards.  It was all so lovely and a wedding we would all have loved to have attended.  It was a true pleasure being involved and able to help out with the additional details.

Kelly and Dan had a fabulous day, gorgeous Italian honeymoon and are now back at work but hopefull looking back to their wonderful day and reliving it through the pages of Kent Bride magazine where they are featured at the moment.