Posted by: Jackie – Voice at the end of the phone on November 6th, 2008

We always have such fun organising wedding flowers – what could give anyone more pleasure than organising beautiful flowers to make a bride’s day even more perfect?  Well that is what I thought until it came to organising flowers for my own daughter’s wedding in July!

To be fair to her, she wasn’t really being difficult – just that she was marrying a Scot and wanted to have the traditional theme of an English rose and Scottish thistle carried through the wedding flowers – as it had been on all the wedding stationery.  Katharine was also absolutely set on white roses with a touch of pink at the tips for her bouquet and venue flowers.

Then she came in to meet Judith, our head wedding florist who designs the most amazing bouquets and arrangements, and everything changed…

Andre makes a start on a pedestal arrangement

…adding some peach roses to complete the effect

One of the church arrangements

The white roses were discarded in favour of our lovely peach roses, as they were more in keeping with her French lace wedding dress.  Judith spent hours discussing exactly what she would like with flowers, with books, drawings, scraps of material, foliage and bridal magazines littering the table. Luckily our florists’ benches are really large.

Then we discovered that thistles are not considered to be bona fide flowers by Sassenachs, but simply as weeds!  This meant that it was impossible to get the genuine thistles that she wanted for the buttonholes and table arrangements. However, we settled on sea holly – Eryngium – as being the closest we could get to a thistle, so that was one problem solved.

Judith and Pawlina make the pew ends

Then Katharine wanted balls of flowers hanging from the ceiling of the marquee – ‘No problem’, said Andre, our head florist.  Judith decided that as we were having a Ceilidh – Scottish reels – in the evening we needed a giant thistle on the stage, and so started planning the flowers she would need to create it.

This thistle made from flowers stood fully 1 metre tall

And then we needed some large arrangements to indicate the entrance to the marquee – trees made of flowers were the obvious choice – to her, at least!

After some quite detailed discussions, all was finalised and Judith and Andre made enormously long lists of flowers that they needed from Holland and we sat back to let it all happen.

Table Arrangements: Before and After the Arena Touch

Judith and Andre started work on the Thursday before the wedding on Saturday and made all the large church arrangements, pew ends and table arrangements in advance. Early on Friday morning, two Arena vans pitched up and disgorged huge amounts of flowers into the marquee.

Judith then started work on her own -  making bouquets, buttonholes, wonderful arrangements for the marquee, flower balls, flower trees, and cake decorations – so many flowers it was quite overwhelming!

Arrangements all ready on the tables and flower trees in place

In the afternoon all the church flowers were taken to the church to set them up and then it was back to the marquee for an evening’s work. Judith was then later joined by Andre and they worked into the early hours of the morning, transforming the marquee and creating the most fantastic wedding flowers.  When we got up in the morning, everything was ready and looking simply stunning.

All that remained was for the weather to change. It had rained and rained and rained and… at about half past ten the sun broke through and the day got better and better until, by the time of the wedding the sun was shining brightly, the sky was a clear bright blue and it was the most perfect English summer day to celebrate our only daughter’s wedding.

As one of my sons remarked to me (and I think he spoke for all of us), it was the happiest day of his life.

To see more great pictures from the wedding – and pictures of weddings of some of our non family clients -  visit our Real Wedding Photos & Feedback gallery. If you would like Arena Weddings to create perfect wedding flowers for your special day, you can contact me direct on 020 8896 8693 or email weddings@arenaflowers.com with your requirements.

 

Filed under: Floristry, Flowers, General, Weddings on November 6th, 2008

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