Michelle and Rob's beautiful yet rustic wedding at Cooling Castle Barn

I was just searching the blog earlier for a wedding to show to another prospective bride and knew that she'd love Michelle and Rob's style (as did I) so I was amazed that I hadn't actually blogged this little beauty!  So despite being months late, here is their wedding in all it's glory!  It was a truly beautiful collection of pale green and ivory and included stocks, bouvardia, astrantia, guelder rose, waxflower, trachellium, gypsophilia, veronica, trachellium, chincherinchee, penesetum, freesias, daisies, amaranthus, rosemary, eucalyptus and more....pretty, fragrant and very English.

Michelle chose a natural, spriggy and textured bouquet in a very "just picked " style for herself and then all white gypsophilia bouquets for her bridesmaids.  Each was tied with hessian with a small lace bow over the top.

The boys buttonholes were equally soft using greentrick, waxflower, chincherinchee, daisies and rosemary for Rob, then omitting the daisies for the Best Man and then scaling them down to gypsophilia and rosemary for the rest of the boys, and just daisies for Flynn, the Page Boy.  Mums' corsages also took on a natural feel and it all worked so well together.

The ceremony barn looked so so pretty for Michelle's entry...we lined her route with pitchers of flowers to match all the wedding flowers, interspersed with hanging jars of gypsophilia.  We added hessian bows to the dais and the stairs.  For the celebrant table we added a rustic arrangement in a piece of driftwood and a jar of gypsophilia wrapped in hessian. 

For the top table, we provided a range of jars and earthenware containers, some with hessian attached and all filled with gorgeous soft flowers to match the wedding.  We added some small blocks of wood to give additional texture and height and left a couple of empty jars for the bridal bouquets.  We also dressed the plough behind the top table with a faux blossom garland and fairy lights.

We then provided a pitcher full of flowers placed on woodblocks for each of the guest tables, each surrounded by a few additional jars of flowers.  We dressed the beams with fairy lights to finish the look.

I loved every minute of this wedding from planning, through preparation to set-up and seeing the photos afterwards.  I know I'm a sucker for green and white flowers (I had them at my wedding) but I think you'll agree that they are stunning in their simplicity.  I'm a little embarrassed (but also very proud of the team) to include the following note that Michelle emailed over to me the day after her wedding....it brought tears to our eyes...

Hi Amanda. 

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 

The flowers and floral displays were absolutely stunningly breathtaking. Incredible. Amazing. I honestly can't find the right adjective. Its like you were in my head as its what I imagined our day to look like but so so much more. 

From the moment I saw your portfolio and displays, I knew you had to be our florist. First and foremost, thank you for putting us at complete ease. In your beautiful home, not just professional but fun, You speak with such passion, joy and confidence that it wasn't hard to put every faith in you. You took your time to get to know us and really reflect exactly who we are and created a beautiful, romantic and simply elegant feel to our day. You took a small idea and made our big day. Thank you so much. We had no end of compliments and I think you're fabulous. 

I'm a very happy and very lucky girl.  

I will always recommend you to any bride to be. They'd be mad not to have you. 

Thanks so much x all the very best x

Mich x

Enjoy! 

Alli and Greg's soft and natural Cooling Castle Barn wedding

When we first met Alli and her best friend, it was hard work getting her to dislike anything!!  Alli is so easy to please and we wanted to make sure everything was just right for her special day.  She chose a gown in a creamy ivory with embellishments giving a slight gold shimmer to it and hence the colours we chose for flowers were muted ivory, green, and champagne.  Alli and Greg wanted to keep everything simple, pretty and very natural and rustic in appearance, hence we styled everything in a softer manner.

Alli's bouquet was a gorgeous mix of roses, lilac, anenomes, veronica, bouvardia, thlaspi, waxflower, astrantia, rosemary, sage...I could go on.  We again designed it to be a bit looser and wilder and then wrapped it simply with an offcut of the dress with some of the embellishments appliqued on top.

We designed a buttonhole for Greg to match Alli's bouquets, complete with more dress detailing around the stem, and a slightly simpler one for the best man.

For the ceremony, we dressed the dais with a gorgeous rustic heart and added a pitcher of flowers and a cluster of random vases to the ceremony table.

For the reception, we decided on different pitchers as the main centrepiece on each table filled with a full and natural selection of flowers and then added small vases around the outside all with a soft mix of the flowers.  Gold and silver chocolate hearts were added by the bridal party along with brown paper wrapped favours and napkins tied with raffia.  The chairs were dressed with lovely hessian bows from Add a Little Sparkle and really worked with the colours etc. 

For the top table, we added slightly smaller pitchers to each end of the table, added an empty one in the middle for Alli's bouquet and then added a random selection of vases along the front.

Finally we dressed all the beams in the barn with a soft and slightly messy faux blossom garland and fairy lights.  I know Alli was super excited this morning and loved all we had done...I have to admit that it shows just how lovely Cooling Castle Barn can look without the more usual tall tablecentres.  The colours and style really work with the wooden beams and were just perfect for Alli and Greg.  We hope they had a wonderful day!