Ally and James' wedding

25/9/2019

Ally and James were married on 27 July 2019 at Froyle Park in Hampshire. This is the biggest wedding I have completed to date and in this post I'd like to take you behind the scenes a little!

I started prepping for this wedding several weeks beforehand by organising tealight holders, candles, vases, ribbons, table plans etc. I also had to organise van hire, an airbnb and plans for an overnight stay. Yes this really was a big wedding for me! This can make a real difference to my timings by getting as much done beforehand as I can.

The photos below show a little behind the scenes - prepping in advance, the flowers after conditioning and actually preparing for and starting work on the flowers. I also hasten to mention that the Thursday before this Saturday wedding was the hottest day of the year! So keeping the flowers cool and fresh was a real challenge - hence why in the photos below they're all in my parents' lounge! This is the coolest room in the house and kept them out of my super hot workshop, but the added work of carrying everything up and down the garden didn't really help matters! I had several fans going but they really weren't cutting it in those temperatures! It all came together in the end though and the flowers all survived, the result of expert conditioning and careful management.

A little preview at loading the van! I hired a short wheel base van - the next size up from my own which was never going to be suitable. All the extra space was a real luxury - I may need to upgrade my own van next year!

Ally's bouquet was a beauty - both in looks and scent! The blush pink and ivory flowers included some stunning O'Hara garden roses, as well as cafe au lait dahlias, spray roses, astilbe, stocks, jasmine and eucalyptus. The bouquets were all finished with beautiful trailing silk ribbons from Little Acorn Silks.

Delivering the bouquet to Ally at the venue - she did a literal jump for joy when she saw it which was the most amazing reaction!

The seven bridesmaids carried smaller versions of Ally's bouquet.

All boxed up and ready for delivery!

The bridesmaids also wore flowers in their hair - combs with foliage and a few little white blooms.

There were five little flower girls all of whom carried adorable little wands - a pink spray rose and gypsophila, finished with trailing ivory ribbons.

The groom and his two best men wore buttonholes with a white spray rose and a selection of different foliages. The other men wore pink roses with a little less foliage.

The mums wore wrist corsages on pearl beaded bracelets with both pink and white roses and other flowers.

Arriving at the beautiful venue and behind the scenes shots of the on-site set up!

Ally and James had been hoping for an outdoor ceremony but unfortunately it just rained all day so we had to turn to Plan B. The ceremony instead moved to this beautiful room (below) and fortunately the designs I'd created worked perfectly in this setting. We'd made all foliage chair ends with enough rows in this setting to have one on the end of every chair. If we'd been outside I would have created a stunning arrangement on the garden dome which would have framed where the bride and groom said their "I dos", but instead we had to decorate the staircase down which the bride would make her entrance - see below. I didn't want the backdrop to be lacking so I whipped up an extra foliage garland to sit along the mantelpiece behind the registrar's table, although this wasn't very deep so it actually kept falling off! So instead we placed it on the table itself.

And here is the fabulous staircase we decorated instead of dressing the garden dome outside. The bride and her sisters came along while I was creating this and thankfully she loved it so it made for a great alternative.

Ally and James had also wanted to decorate the swing outside for some photos which we still did in case it dried up long enough for a few shots. And seeing the professional photos it looked like they got lucky in the evening so I'm so pleased for them that they got outside at least for a little while! Keep reading to see them enjoying the swing.

The top table looked stunning - you don't need flowers to make something beautiful as foliage is a real show stopper! A luscious garland traversed the full length of the top table with tealight holders dotted in between and a custom Mr and Mrs sign hanging on the front.

For the 20 (yes 20!) tables we came up with 4 different designs - they all featured similar elements such as foliage and tealights, but with a different design on each table it added real interest to the venue. The room itself was fairly plain and neutral so it was great to add in some height, light in the evening and elegant touches of gold.

The first featured a tall candelabra with a foliage garland wrapped around the main stem. Flowers were dotted throughout with a moss base and a selection of tealights.

The second design for the tables was this "ring of foliages" - a circular garland of mixed foliages with a range of different tealights in the centre. I really love this design!

The third design featured a trio of cylindrical glass vases with candles inside, with further tealights around the edge and loosely placed foliages surrounding it all. The fourth and final design had five bud vases for the chair ends to be moved into, again with tealights and loosely placed foliages.

A couple of thank you gift bouquets for the mums.

The delicious cake was made by Starring Cakes and Bakes. We worked on the cake together at the venue - I'd already made little groupings of flowers which Deniz attached to the cake and then I added in some more little sprigs of foliage to finish off. It looked beautiful (and really tasty!)