I nearly laid an egg when Jess and Tony sent me the photos of their wedding at Wethele Manor in September. Frank Wood, their Birmingham-based photographer, had caught the vivacity of Jess’s wild bouquet, in a collection of stunning shots and my first sight of his work left me shrieking with delight. I suddenly understood why Jess had made reference to them in the kind comment she left for me as a testimonial.
“Hello lovely Carole, Thank you so much for everything you did for us, the flowers were absolutely perfect and everyone commented on how beautiful and colourful they were, which is exactly what we were after (the colourfulness, not the comments, although they were nice too!). Can’t wait to see what you think of the piccies!”
I think “bowled over” was about the best way to put it.
Jess and Tony were dream clients – we got off to a flying start, chatting ten to the dozen about ideas during their consultation on a balmy summer evening, sitting out in the Tuckshop Garden.
“Lots of colour”
“Bright”
“Wild’
“Not matchy matchy”
and
“Just as long as they’re beautiful”
was the general brief which emerged. I love it when a couple are willing to put their trust in the loveliness of seasonality, and in my ability to capture its essence in their wedding flowers. I know what a big leap of faith it is to hand over control of such an important element of this massively significant day.
The way I work has a very different start point to a catalogue or pattern book – my flowers evolve from looking around at what is looking most gorgeous at the time of making arrangements. In September, when Jess and Tony got married, that meant picking the brightest dahlias, the scarlet spears of kaffir lilies, vivid blue delphiniums, frothy ammi, effervescent love-in-a-mist, delicate wiry stemmed potentilla and the singular, Turkish-delight scented, scarlet magnificence of my favourite Alec’s Red rose, which chose to offer up a single perfectly formed bloom right on time for Jess’s bouquet. But if you’d asked me a week before the wedding what flowers would be featured in the bouquet, I still might not have been able to specify exactly.
Given the wealth of beautiful annual flowers around in late summer, I was spoiled for choice in the cutting patch, and the lack of a colour scheme was completely liberating. I think you’ll agree that while shocking pink, blue, purple and red might not be a combination that you see in many bridal magazines, the wild style and huge variation in forms, texture and colour just goes to prove that nature doesn’t need a colour scheme to work to. With a feel for flowers and the way they move and how they can complement each other, so many colours can work together.
I’d like to send out a massive thank you to Jess and Tony for sharing their photos and for being such great clients (and for the delicious jar of onion chutney – recipe please!).
If you’re spending the dark cold days of winter imagining your very own wildflower wedding, get in touch to discuss ideas – I’d love to sow some metaphorical and literal seeds for your wedding flowers!
