Nikki and Martin were married on 15 July 2017 in Colchester. This lovely little wedding was made up of the bridal bouquet, one bridesmaid and two buttonholes. I used 'avalanche' and 'sweet avalanche' roses, spray roses, lisianthus, bouvardia and astrantia, with silvery grey foliage. It made for a very pretty combination, as shown in the photos below:

And here's a look at the professional photos, shot by D & N Photography:

Gemma and Matt were married on 7 July 2017 at the gorgeous Mangapp Manor  in Burnham. I hadn't visited this venue before but it truly is stunning so if you're currently looking for somewhere to get married then definitely check it out!

Gemma had a button and brooch bouquet to carry instead of flowers, however I made flowers for the bridesmaids, top table, centrepieces and thank you bouquets. I also made a gyp throwing bouquet so Gemma didn't have to throw her brooch bouquet. With a tea party theme we incorporated teacup stacks into the centrepieces and teacups and teapots on the top table. The colour scheme was white, pink and blue and I used a combination of peonies, roses, delphiniums, spray roses, gypsophila and limonium. 

Transporting the centrepieces was a bit of a challenge - driving with flowers in the van is already stressful enough without fragile centrepieces to add into the mix! Gemma had brought them round to me in boxes with a shredded up Next catalogue to protect the delicate china, so I made use of these when moving them from my workshop to the venue! Not the prettiest but sometimes practicality wins out over pretty! Check out some of the prep photos below:

And here are some photos of the final flowers and at the venue - check out those thrones! The other suppliers where still setting up when we'd finished and the chairs were still being backed when we left so therefore I didn't get to see the venue fully decorated, but I know it looked amazing!

And here's one of the happy couple, taken by Peter Gammon Photography:

Sunday 25th June was International Lonely Bouquet Day and the end of British Flowers Week. The idea of the lonely bouquet initiative is to dedicate one day a year to making strangers happy, and this is done through flowers! Florists around the world put together little bunches of flowers which they then leave around their local villages/towns/cities. As villages go Tiptree is quite big but it still has that small village feel so I could leave the bouquets around knowing they'd go off to a good home.

British Flowers Week is fairly self explanatory - it celebrates British flowers! Here in the UK we don't quite have the same growing power as Holland or other African/South American countries that have big flower industries, however it is quickly growing so it's great to be able to celebrate all things British. And Florismart (who I use to provide the majority of my flowers) were giving away promo boxes to florists, which meant I could make even bigger bunches for the lonely bouquets - the sunflowers and stocks in the lonely bouquets came from here. I then added to the bouquets with flowers I had grown myself in my cutting garden to give a lovely mix of fresh flowers - I used ammi, daisies, bupleurum. alstroemeria and cornflowers. 

I've heard back from three of the five bunches I put out but they'd all gone by the afternoon when I went back into the village so I hope they all made it to good homes! I took photos of each bouquet in situ, although without anything that would make it too obvious where they were! I didn't place them anywhere hard to find though - that defeats the point slightly! So I used a bench in the centre of the village, in the car park of my local supermarket, in the local park, outside the church and by the war memorial. I get such great feedback from the people who have found them, as I've done lonely bouquets a few times now not just on this one particular day, so it's great to know I can brighten someone's day. One of my July brides even sent out her fiancé and little girl to hunt for a bunch and I heard she was so excited and proud when she found one, which is just adorable!

If you missed out but are keen to get your hands on some beautiful flowers then I'll be selling bunches at HLF HQ at weekends throughout the summer - keep an eye on my Facebook/Instagram feeds for confirmation of when the flowers will be available!