Lincolnshire day Wedding

A couple of years ago I did some wedding flowers for some lovely friends of mine who got married on Lincolnshire day, finally here is the blog post about them. 

 The couple were looking for a seasonal country look with red gingham and hessian and gave me quite free rein to do flowers to fit in with this.
In the quaint family church I did some bundle few ends, these are less formal than the full flower, and give a lovely floral look. The bundles were tied with a hessian bow and included, hypericum, poppy seed head, corn and lavender and dried nicely to be kept after the service.

I also did a pedestal arrangement in in-keeping colours to be at the front of the church. 

 On the outside of the church we attached a silk flower garland which looked lovely in photos and just brings the wedding theme outside as well as in.

 For the bridal flowers in was a round loose posy for the bride this is a popular style for the country look and was a nice change to work in deeper colours rather than the always popular pinks. The bouquet had a mixture of flowers including roses, dahlias, skimmia,amaranthus, astratia and gyp.

It was handled with  neat hessian ribbon a favorite for this style of bouquet. 

 A smaller version so made for the bridesmaid and a basket decorated with red gingham ribbon and filled with petals was done for the flower girl.

The buttonholes and corsages kept with the country theme with rosemary foliage and lace ribbon.  The mens buttonholes were also wrapped in paper twine, to tie in the with hessian.

 The other mens buttonholes were made in cluster style with spray roses but the groom was slightly different with a larger single rose.

I did like how the buttonholes looked together in the box ready for delivery.

 For the reception flowers the couple had sourced their own containers which fitted in perfectly with the theme and I filled them with in-keeping flowers. The table centers had large single jars in chicken wire containers decorated with hessian and gingham hearts.

 And there was also some sweet pair of jars on a basket tray for decorating the bar.

 Flowers really complete a theme at a wedding.

 And make a venue look different and special to any normal occasion.

 A shot of the overall room with flowers on the tables and bespoke bunting adorning the ceiling

Picture of the venue flowers ready for delivery, always looks good to see all the flowers together as well, all the beautiful colour together.

A beautiful autumnal Lincolnshire day for a lovely wedding. With lots of lovely memories with my friends for years to come. Thank you for choosing me to do our wedding flowers. 

When a florist gets married (part 3)

 So the last in the flowery blog posts about my wedding flowers. There will be more blog posts over on my other blog "Hannah's Craft Cottage" about all the handmade elements of the wedding. (believe me there's alot)
Having planned to create quite striking designs for the church flowers I wanted the reception flowers to have a much more casual and cottage feel to them, one reason being its a style I love and another being it fitted in well with the style and feel of the venue, a historic thatched manor house with marquee and beautiful informal garden.
I decided the table centers would be a collection of jars and bottles in the popular cluster style.

 To tie these containers in with other elements of the wedding decor I decorated some of them with os maps and sheet music, these are things to represent aspects of the bride and grooms life. I really like how these turned out and think they looked brill even without the flowers in. Other decorations included lace ribbon and black and white bakers twine which was also used in other elements of the wedding theme.

 To help add alittle height and interest to the table centers I added a couple of books these were a selection of hard backs previously from my husbands book collection ( They were earmarked for the charity shop before I found a use for them) We liked the idea of using books as we are both big readers and Alex has both written and edited books. On the books where the table name made out of a double sided Ikea frame, our wedding colour green card and matching font, the tables were named after hills and mountains which have meaning for us. A small jar was placed on the books as well and three containers of varying sizes placed around it. This I felt made the table centers big enough for the tables (mostly five foot rather than the usual six) and was well balanced.

 The flowers used for these displays included stocks, and sweet peas for fragrance, roses to tie in with the other flowers and lots of cottage garden style flowers including veronica, matricaria (dasiy like flowers) peonys, iris, pink snapdragons (like the shop, logo) Eryngium (thistle like),blue bells (as they were growing outside church and in the garden) green bell, eucalyptus and more. I was worried when it all arrived I'd over ordered but there was just enough to fill every container.

 The flowers were a mixture of colours still predominately creams and greens to try in with the others but I thought with the blooming garden just outside and the country look we were going for alittle extra colour would be nice.
On the top table there was three of these duo bottle containers, I liked the shape of these for the long top table and the lacy element of the metal fret work is pretty. this one was in front of myself and the groom with a peony and my favorite green carnation. the other two were slightly themed towards the colours the Mums were wearing.

The caterer was using their very lovely mismatched vintage china to serve the afternoon tea in, this was another reason I wanted to add a dash of colour to the table flowers to tie in with this I was very pleased with the overall look.

How the tables looked with the flowers on. Not intrusive but just enough and fitting in well with the other decorations in the marquee.

As well as the bottle and the jars for the tables we had some large glass coffee jars which were filled with matching flowers and dotted about the venue to help make it all feel like part of the wedding. Being an old quirky building it had lots of places for these. Here are some in the bar, situated in the old kitchen

 Here's one on the massive fireplace in the entrance hall

One on box next to the shelves where we displayed old wedding photos for our family and friends. They also found homes in the tearoom which was being used as a quite room and in the loos.  I felt for a florists wedding it was good to have flowers everywhere.

One other little flowery element in the reception which wasn't really planned was my bridesmaids flowers. I mentioned to the girls about the shelf on the front of the stage maybe being a good place to pop their flowers out of the way during the afternoon tea but they surprised me with the lovely idea of placing them either side of our light box sign making this lovely display.
So there you go that's what happens when a florist gets married, I really loved creating my wedding flowers and hope my guests enjoyed looking at them.

When a florist gets married (part 2)

When a florist gets married there seems to be so many flowers which is why I have split them up in to several blog posts. this one will be all about the church flowers we had at our wedding.

Working closely with the church and being involved in the flowers there I've always had quite a set idea of the flowers I wish to use and the style of them for my wedding.  This mainly consisted of a number of parallel arrangements showcasing some of my favorite flowers, green carnations, blooms, stocks and cymbidium orchids. 

 These were placed in the porch and on the windowsills in church. The picture to the right and above are of the ones in the porch, these were made slightly shorted than the others to fit in the space.

 There were then 7 arrangements for the windowsills inside church, these were made longer with soft ruscus greenery up to about 5 foot in length to cover the space. Luckily the shop is very near the church and we could walk the arrangements from one place to another, I'm not sure I would have liked trying to transport them by car.

 I wanted to stick with the simple white and green colours in the church flowers, to try in green theme and it gives a clean elegant look and sits well both against the plain and coloured glass windows. I really think they looked impressive and were quite methodical to put together. 

 For my sisters wedding I had created two large pedestals to stand at the chancel steps in front of the screen so I wanted something abit different for mine. I made four arrangements on oasis bumps which were tied to the screen, these had the addition of the grey lace ribbon which is has been used in the silk bridal party flowers to tie everything together.

 I was really pleased with the way these turned out, they really help give the front of the church that wedding look which out being too much effort on my part (as really I had enough to do)
We left the flowers in church as the next day was the festival of Pentecost which we like to have the church "dressed" for, I think it was extra nice that our first big festival back in church after the work had so many lovely flowers and all matching.

There are also two pedestals in church which are a permanent feature (except during advent and lent) I spoke to the ladies who where rotated to do the pedestals that week and supplied them with a few flowers to match up with my own, they also added red as that is the traditional Pentecostal colour but this worked out ok as it toned in with the red carpet ect at church.
My thanks go to the ladies for their brilliant pedestals which added to the overall floral look but didn't add to my work load.  this is the one opposite the main door

   And this one sits next to the high altar, I particularly like the addition of the green blooms and carnations in this display which lasted really well.

Photo credit Adian Clarkson

I really like how good the pedestal looks on the picture with the choir with the red carnations matching up with the red robes and the green matching up with their silk green carnation buttonholes.

Some other fresh flowers I made at church were for my father who is in the church yard. He had a long spray of matching green and white flowers and a posy of blue and white, which matched up with some of the flowers at the reception.

While I'm mentioning grave flowers there are some other silk flowers I forgot to mention in the previous post a wreath matching the flowers used in my bouquet which was sent north to be placed on the groom fathers grave so he would be in-keeping and matching as well.










So there are the church flowers we had, you may notice the absence of pew end decorations a popular element of church wedding flowers, well me being me I had to have something slightly different so look out for those in a craft blog coming soon.

When a florist gets married. (Part one)

Hello all I realize I haven't blogged for a very long time. Life and work as been very one thing after another and in the background of everything has been my own wedding planning.
So who does the flowers when a florist gets married, well in my case I DO! Working in the industry you can't help but pick up ideas and think about what you might want for your own day, so when I became engaged in late 2016, it was time to pull all those ideas and thoughts to the fore and see how the flowers for my own wedding were going to work.

I decided that I would do the bridal party flowers, (my bouquet, bridesmaids, buttonholes and corsages) in artificial flowers, these are things which often have to wait till the last minute to be done or finished and I remember being up very early on the morning of my sisters wedding to get everything done, I didn't want that on my own day and this way I could do them ahead of time not stress and we'ed all be able to keep them afterwards. The picture to the left is a view of one of the three bridesmaids bouquets.

 These were done on sisal cones, these have been around for quite a while but I've never had a bride who wanted them, so I thought I would have them for mine, its something abit different and slightly ties in with the geeky fantasy touches we were sneaking in to the wedding. The flowers were arranged in a small cascade as I wanted something different to the usual round posies. 

 Added to the silk flowers were pearls, dew drops, and ribbon in a grey lace which made several appearances thought the wedding and tied in with the grey and mint theme. The girls dresses them selves were a deep charcoal with large mixed colour flowers on, so the pale cones and flowers stood out against them well.

 Next the mothers corsages. These were using the same flowers a mixture of the main two blooms and some filler with ribbons, crystals. These were done on magnets to make for easy attachment. The neutral colours worked well with both mums outfits. 

Close up shot of the corsages showing small crystal flowers, in lovely pale green. 

 The men's buttonholes, were done with two smaller cream roses and and other bits to create the on trend cluster look, I'd done this style in fresh for other brides and really wanted it for my own as well. Again these on magnets to make them easy to attach and not damage clothing. I also thought these would be safer around my small niece who was bound to pull at them.

 Other corsages I made for the partner of the best man, our reader and my Grandmother, her's had some purple added to match in with her outfit.

Since I was making all of this ahead of time I also put together a dozen of these green carnation buttonholes. These were for the choir at church to wear, I thought this was a nice gesture as I am a member of the choir and I wanted them to feel part of everything, fresh green carnations were used in the church flowers as they are one of my favorites. 

And finally in the silk flowers, my own bouquet. For myself I created a delicate small teardrop bouquet. Like a larger version of the bridesmaids without the cone. I didn't want anything massive as I knew my dress wasn't huge, something slightly understated but very pretty. Again it was interlaced with pearls, dew drops, and crystal flowers.

 The handle was curved slightly to aid holding and wrapped with more of the grey lace ribbon, with a pearl bouquet brooch added rather than a bow.

 For my something blue I added a blue Scottish thistle this also gives a nod to our Scottish heritage and other connections we have with it.

I found the inspiration for my bouquet quite a while ago in a copy of fusion flowers wedding magazine, I knew I wanted the compact look with lots of extra bits like the pearls ect. I choose the silk flowers to use from Country Baskets a wholesaler I have been using since my student days. They come in bunches with four blooms two of each style and small hydrangea pieces, I dismantled the bunches and built my designs from them. I love the vintage feel to the colour of them with the hints of dusky pink and green with the cream and also the fact the bunches are called Bronte which is a lovely coincidence with the grooms family Withering Heights connections.

So that's my bridal party flowers, check back soon for more blog posts about the church and venue flowers., and hopefully some pictures of them in action once we get the official ones. There will also be posts on my Hannah's craft cottage blog about all the other handmade items which when in to the wedding.