At The Real Flower Company we love providing the perfect backdrop for your wedding. It gives us so much pleasure to use our very special flowers and expertise to add joy to your very special day. Unlike most wedding suppliers, all of the flowers and foliage we bring to you are grown on our own farms, so we have known and nurtured them from day one to the moment when they help you to celebrate a new phase of your life. We can provide ‘ready-to-wear’ wedding flowers including bridal bouquets and complementary bridesmaids’ bouquets, buttonholes and table decorations. And we can also create bespoke arrangements crafted by our expert team to enhance your wedding venue.

It may be the case that weddings at the moment have to be small, but there is no reason why they can’t still be beautiful. To show you an example of the beauty we can provide, we decked out a local church with flowers from our farm crafted into glorious arrangements by our wonderful team. And we asked our head florist, Amanda Harris, to tell us more.

How did you begin to create the decorations for the church?

The first thing we do is to look at the venue. So after we had our first visit to the church, we were able to make decisions based what would best suit the available space and the style of the building. We also had to factor in how much time we had, as the church was still open for the public to visit and the length of the photoshoot was limited.

Tell us a bit more about the two different arrangements you created.

We wanted to create two contrasting arrangements: an elegant white and green classic one and a more colourful, wilder ‘country garden’ one. Personally, I love the white and green – it is truly stunning and really brings out the beauty of the arched entrance to the church. I must admit that I’m a big fan of white and green, whatever the circumstances!

What flowers did you use in the two arrangements?

Whatever the season, we have an abundance of flowers and foliage on the farm. One of the joys of working here is watching how what we grow changes from season to season, providing us with different colour palettes and plants to work with. In winter we also import roses from our sister farm Tambuzi in Kenya – they are grown under natural conditions and retain their wonderful scent just like the ones we have here in Hampshire.

Because we created the arrangements for the shoot in the peak of summer, we had a huge choice of flowers. The farm was in its second flush of roses, our foliage was all vibrant and healthy, and for the white collection we had an abundance of Margaret Merril roses – this was the rose that inspired our founder Rosebie to set up the company in the first place. It has the most amazing scent, so it was a no-brainer to use it.

For the white and green collection, we teamed Margaret Merril with more delicate Ammi, Scabiosa, Thalspi and Jasmine flowers. We also used trails of Honeysuckle and Sweet Pea – as you can imagine, the scent was heavenly, though of course the photographer couldn’t capture that! For the ‘country garden’ collection we blended the dark pink of Romantic Antike and Rachel Louise Moran roses with the pale blush of Chandos Beauty, the light yellow of Irish Hope and the apricot of Evelyn. We teamed this with Lavender, Cat Mint, Rubiflora, Thalspi and Jasmine.

Tell us about some of the challenges you faced.

Unfortunately, we chose the hottest day of the year for our photoshoot. So the weather presented a huge challenge in that we had to make each arrangement as quickly as possible so our work would look its best before the heat got too much. We also had to work quickly to create two different arrangements in the short space of time available from the photographer. The public visiting the church were very interested and several of them wanted to stop and chat.

What advice would you give couples who are thinking about wedding flowers?

Bear in mind when choosing your colour scheme that florists may not always be able to match it. Seasonality plays a big part in choosing flowers, and your florist should be able to advise you about what is in or out of season, recommending an alternative where possible. Think about how the arrangement you order will fit within the space – a small arrangement may be lost, or a large arrangement could overpower a smaller room. And finally, be realistic with your budget, studying your chosen florist’s website to get a feel of what you can afford.

You can find details of our ‘ready-to-wear’ collections, with bridal bouquets and accompanying buttonholes, bridesmaid bouquets and decorations, here. We would love to help you to create bespoke wedding flowers – to discuss the options, contact our team by giving us a call on 01730 818300 or emailing [email protected].