Rachel and Dan's wedding

30/7/2018

Rachel & Dan were married on 30 June 2018 at a church in Stanway, followed by their reception in the Anne of Cleves Barn at Great Lodge. This gorgeous wedding was so well thought out by the bride, with such a great attention to detail. The ivory/peach/pink colour scheme was so subtle and elegant and complimented perfectly by naturally dyed silk ribbons to finish the bouquets and as runners on the tables.

For the flowers I used garden roses, 'quicksand' roses, spray roses, stocks, scabiosa, sweet peas, carnations, astrantia. astilbe, and succulents, with eucalyptus, olive, pistache and some jasmine trails in the bride's bouquet.

Rachel's bouquet was an elegant stunner - the colour worked perfectly together and there were so many lovely textures and scents in there. The four bridesmaids carried smaller versions of the bridal bouquet, with all the same colours and flowers. The gorgeous, gorgeous silk ribbons were from Silk and Purl.

The buttonholes also incorporated succulents, which looked fab paired with a spray rose and a grouping of mixed foliages. The groom didn't wear a buttonhole as he was in uniform so I kept them all the same for the groomsmen - I quite often suggest that the groom's buttonhole be a bit different from everyone else's seeing as he's the man of the moment! Whether this is by using a different combination of flowers from the wedding, a larger focal flower or even a different coloured flower.

There were also two ladies lapel corsages and a ladies wrist corsage, plus a flower comb for the bride's hair.

Rachel knew that she wanted to keep her bouquet after the wedding so I designed a smaller, simple hand tied bouquet of just gypsophila that she could throw as is tradition. I also finished this with silk ribbon so that it still tied in with the other flowers.

For the church we designed some stunning pew ends - these featured a single peony with a grouping of foliages from the wedding, attached to the pew ends with a silk ribbon bow and decorated with a length of chiffon fabric which cascaded down the pew and pooled on the floor. Fairly simple as designs go but it looked so elegant and beautiful, and made a much bigger statement that a little grouping of flowers would make on their own. I have the fabric available to hire so if you'd like to do something similar for your own pew/chair ends then get in touch now for more information! I also made two bigger groupings of flowers and foliages to be attached to the outside of the church entryway.

The venue is just stunning - I hadn't worked at Great Lodge before but I definitely want to work there again! That back wall with all the windows is just amazing. Rachel really put a lot of though into the table centrepieces - elegant silk runners from Silk and Purl,gold frames with the table names and menus, and a grouping of glass bottles and vases that she'd collected from antique shops and car boot sales that I filled with a beautiful selection of flowers. I also loved the look of the place names tied around the neck of the wine glasses with twine. I also filled gin bottles to be placed on the drinks table and designed two large milk churns to sit either side of the entrance to the barn.

We also decorated the chairs in the venue - every other one had a little sprig of eucalyptus tied on with twine, with two larger groupings finished with silk ribbon for the bride and groom's chairs. My mum came along on the set up with me and I think she was despairing me after I asked her to tie on all the bunches while I filled the bottles and wired up foliage for the cake! With nearly 50 of them to do it was a bit fiddly tying them all on but they really helped the venue look great so it was definitely worth it.