Now what is a girl to do when she is faced with the quandary of what flowers to have for her wedding when she works for a company who grow all of their own amazing flowers including 82 varieties of gloriously scented roses? Well, she makes sure she uses as many of them as she possibly can!
Well that’s not entirely true but when the reality had finally sunk in that I was getting married, I quickly started planning my flowers around the time of year. We had picked the 19
th September as our wedding date which meant a lot to me as it was my late father’s birthday, but this also meant that we were dangerously close to the end of the summer season and I HAD TO HAVE ENGLISH ROSES! (First Bridezilla moment) We had been lucky with the season and Rob the farm manager assured me that the roses would still be available and that I would be inundated with a bevy of my favourite slightly more Autumnal flowers such as Dahlias and floral jewels such as Snowberries, blackberries and spindle berries which would give injections of wonderful colour and texture throughout my arrangements.
I was now on the flip side of my normal consultation role which meant listing everything I wanted down before getting carried away so I started, as I do with all my brides with theme which as I’ve already mentioned was greedy both in colour and variety. A bright bridal mix was chosen of clashing oranges, pale pinks and rich greens. The Bridal party flowers are always the first port of call which included mine and the bridesmaid’s bouquets; all to look fairly similar and bound in multicolour trailing ribbons to highlight the roses. On this subject I held no prisoners and included my frilly favourite
Just Joey, Princess Charlene, Romantic Antike, Cream Piaget, David Austin Kiera, David Austin Juliet and Jubilee Celebration. This was then mixed with Tuberose, pale pink Astilbe, Snowberries and oodles of herbs and scented foliage’s such as Eucalyptus and Geranium. I kept the same theme with my headdress which had an asymmetrical design which meant I could use the smaller roses and flowers to graduate into a slightly larger side which meant it wasn’t too overwhelming and heavy to wear. This was then tied off with trailing multicolour ribbons (a note to all brides out there, MAKE sure this is tied up tightly enough otherwise like me you may find yourself with it over your eyes mid vows)
I wanted all the boys’ buttonholes to be slightly different by using a variation of hops, roses and berries, all bound with string to keep the country look consistent.
We were having a blessing outside and I had always dreamt of standing beneath a luscious fragrant arch. Becky and the team gave me exactly that and it was jammed packed once again with bright scented Roses, pink Hydrangeas and as a nod to my tree surgeon husband, gorgeous russet oak leaves softened with tall Rubus, Rubifolia and giant Spindle Berry.
Our barn décor was what I liked to call “Urbarn” I didn’t particularly want to clutter up the tables with big flower displays, so decided to break up the space with hanging basket arrangements which were hung quite low and alternated with hanging white paper lanterns. I then matched sporadic jam jars which on which I used buckets of filler and flowers from the farm which are also available from our
DIY range, on the table,which left enough space for the sharing platters of food.
Finally, I made sure that we had thank you bouquets for both mums which I think is such a nice gesture and made sure that after the days after they were both able to have a reminder of the day.
My main piece of advice for bridal flowers is go with your heart and don’t be afraid to use mixes of colour which steer away from your normal run of the mill pastel palette for weddings. Having said that if your heart is set on pastels then there are so many different flowers, textures and scents that can make even the simplest arrangements incredible. Never be afraid to pick up the phone and talk to our team at The Real Flower Company as we honestly love talking flowers and helping where we can.
Rebbie x
