Flowers, love and marriage

Things are starting to move in the flower year. All sorts of lovely spring flowers are now available from Cornwall and daffodils, crocus and hellebore are all blooming in our Sheffield garden. The jugs above are the product of last weekend’s Welcome to Spring /Mother’s Day Workshop. The picture below shows some of the flowers we used – ranunculus, tulips and green iris. Such beautiful, vivid colours.

We also used lots of narcissi which smelled wonderful. This early cheer was particularly splendid.

As well as the large jug arrangements, we also made pretty jam jar arrangements – we added a few snowdrops and anemones to these.

This weekend I also went to a wedding fayre at the Holiday Inn Royal Victoria in Sheffield. Here I am in front of my stall.

Wedding fayres are a bit of a showcase of the kinds of arrangements I might make for weddings. I showed two different colour schemes – first of all bright yellows, pinks and other strong colours presented in the containers we used for the workshop – the Heron Cross jug and up-cycled jam jars. The jam jars are great for receptions because guest can take them away at the end of the evening. I also displayed the book that Jessie and I made about the development of Meadowsweet – it is called ‘Flowers for Life’.

Then I also used a colour scheme of white, blue and pink.

I made a bridesmaid’s posy from white ranunculus and blue anemones and finished it off with lace held in place with diamante pins. This looked really fresh and pretty.

I also made three tiny arrangements in small jam jars – these showed how flowers can be spread across a large area by making lots of small arrangements rather than one large one. 

The other two items which drew a lot of interest were the cup and saucer arrangement and the posy in an up-cycled tin.  Here they are back in my workshop after the fayre.

I had a great time talking to couples about their wedding plans – everyone is so excited and happy about their big day. Some couples are planning a grand wedding in a venue like the Royal Victoria which is quite magnificent with high ceilings and elaborate chandeliers, and others are on a tight budget and thinking about arranging their flowers themselves – one of my workshops could really help with this! Finally, on the theme of love, look at this picture I took in Millhouses park on Sunday. It is a huge heart made out of purple crocuses – it is stunning when you come across it. Somehow it has captured the essence of this time of year – full of optimism, hope and love.