pinks and purples Archives

Just near Leatherhead in Surrey within the reserve of Norbury Park there is a beautiful place called Phoenice Fields, an area where you can have your wedding celebrations surrounded by nature. Melina and Ian had lovely big tipi tents which we decorated with natural, garden style flower arrangements. There was afternoon tea with all different vintage style crockery which looked great with the different coloured old medicine bottles I used with pretty garden blooms.

The bouquet

Melina’s bouquet was a mix of purples, lilacs, whites and some pinks. She had a really natural loose cascade made up of trailing clematis and asparagus fern. We used gorgeous scented lilac flowering mint, English scabiosa, deep purple delphiniums, lisianthus, september daisies, cosmos, freesia, clematis, astrantia, and English grown iris.

Outdoor decoration

There is a lovely long walkway through long grasses where the bridal and groom were to walk arrive through which we decorated with shepherd hooks with hanging bottles of flowers on. They also had an outdoor blessing and we lined the aisle with more shepherd hooks too.

Tipi decoration

We filled old wooden crates with a pretty mix of garden style blooms which cascaded over the edge and decorated the area for the table plan. There were also vintage milk churns with flowers to make a statement at the entrance of the tipis. Of course all these were free of floral foam, as you know I like to keep things as eco as possible.

Tables

The tables all had a lovely mix of different turquoise, blue, green and purple glass bottles filled with a wide variety of different garden style flowers.

Foam free mechanics

For those who are interested in the mechanics behind the wooden crate arrangements – there are two large buckets filled with water and with chicken wire over the top to keep flowers in place. This keeps the flowers happy and hydrated on this hot July day as well as the environment happy that one less load of floral foam is heading for landfill.

I have also started providing my gift bouquets unwrapped and in small vases as this reduces packaging and cellophane use. The glass vases can then be reused or recycled, and also returned to me if you no longer want them! If you ever are wondering what to do with something left over from a flower arrangement you’ve received – a plastic tray for example, florists will always be happy to have them back to reuse!

Thank you Melina and Ian for choosing me for your wedding florist!

Pinks, purples, sweet peas and peonies!

I absolutely loved working on this wedding, so many amazing scented flowers to work with! May is a great time of year to get married as it crosses over spring and summer so you get the best of both worlds, you can have tulips and ranunculus but also sweet peas and peonies. We used clematis, stocks, lisianthus, sweet peas, ranunculus, peonies, David Austin roses, ‘moody blue’ roses, spray roses, fountain grass and some gorgeous Irish grown foliage.

Suzanne and Peter chose to tie the knot at one of my favourite local Brighton venues, Pangdean Old Barn. It is always such a pleasure to work there and it has such a beautiful garden where you can have an outdoor ceremony (unpredictable British weather permitting!) I decorated the outdoor area but sadly the weather didn’t cooperate so we moved the aisle flowers indoors and turned into hanging indoor vases instead. Not your Average I Do had decorated the barn with lovely lanterns too which really tied the colour scheme together nicely.

The colours chosen worked really well with the sage green colour scheme at Pangdean – as you can see in the picture above, matching foliage and door paint!