Autumn Flower Workshop

Here are Helen, Annie, Jessie and Ann at the end of the flower workshop with their wonderful bouquets presented in Meadowsweet gift boxes. This blog tells the story of what they made and how they did it. The story is told mainly in pictures. Jessie (second from the right) took the photos so you won`t see her again! Here is how it all started – the calm before the storm on a lovely sunny day in Sheffield in late October. The flowers and foliage in the buckets are the ingredients we used – gorgeous, seasonal English flowers.

Here I am showing everyone how to get to grips with foliage, and here they are preparing their pittosporum and eucalyptus (what a lovely smell).

Our task was to make a magnificent bouquet using groups of flowers. This is quite a difficult challenge, especially as most of the group had never done any flower arranging before. The first stage was to make six individual posies made of grouped flowers and foliage. The first posy was made with these fantastic delphiniums standing tall in their pomp! Here is everyone sorting out their flowers and a close up of Annie deep in concentration.

Next we made posies of chrysanthemums and of red dahlias. The red dahlias were especially striking. Again, you can see everyone working on their dahlias and then Annie doing a great job.

The next posies were made of alstroemeria – first pink and then white. Here is Ann calmly considering her developing posy, followed by a close up of the lovely white alstroemeria with a piece of cinerea eucalyptus.

The final posy was made with vibrant pink roses. Here is Helen putting hers together, followed by a close-up of the roses (everything and everyone was so obligingly photogenic – flowers and participants!).

The next stage was to get ready for constructing the bouquet. First you can see all six posies completed and resting in the bucket; and then all the posies set up on the table ready for action.

Then the last ingredients – string for tying the bouquet, parvifolia eucalyptus to add a soft edge to the bouquet and the final icing on the cake – these exquisite kaffir lilies to add as a final touch.

OK – hold the delphiniums firmly in your left hand.

And now start to add posies in a spiral…easy!

Have you ever seen such attentive workshop participants before?

Anne’s got it….beautiful.

And so have Annie and Helen.

Perhaps a bit of a tweak needed here….

And finally, all the bouquets are complete. Just look at what everyone has achieved.

The next step was to wrap the bouquets in cellophane and add water so that the flowers stay fresh while they are moved about or presented as a gift. First take some cellophane.

Place your bouquet in the middle.

And wrap it up.

Then pour in the water and place the bouquet in the gift box. Just gorgeous!

Jessie left her bouquet with me and here it is in my sitting room today - 10 days after the end of the workshop. It still looks fresh and vibrant. What a triumph for seasonal English flowers and for the skills of the workshop participants!

Eleanor's Wedding

Here are Eleanor and Aurelien looking really happy just after they were married. It was a sunny summer’s day in Wales on the last Sunday in August. The wedding took place at St Maelog’s Church, Llandefaelog. The church is just a few miles along the road from Cilhowey, the farmhouse where Eleanor was brought up. Aurelien is French – so the wedding had a wonderful trilingual atmosphere – French, English and Welsh were all spoken and sung throughout the day. This was a joyous country wedding and the flowers were designed to reflect this – I wanted them to look natural, informal and fresh as a daisy. Eleanor chose a colour scheme of white and pink. To start with the men - I made striking, uninhibited buttonholes. These featured a white rose set off with a little piece of vibrant pink statice and white gypsophila, and backed up with small pieces of box and eucalyptus (parvifolia). I finished them off with lace and string. I hot footed it down to the church to pin the button holes on to Aurelien and the accompanying French men. Here he is, and here are two of the ushers outside the church. Dishy or what!

St Maelog’s is a pretty little church nestling in the countryside and it was full to bursting with happy and excited people. Eleanor wore a beautiful classic white dress and her five grown-up bridesmaids wore pretty pink full-length dresses. There were also two young flower girls in white dresses. I made Eleanor’s bouquet with lots of white flowers – phlox, roses, alstroemeria, spiky veronica and gypsophila – contrasted with pink sweet william (particularly delicate and easy on the eye), pink carnations and pink dahlias. Because the bouquet was predominantly white I added in a bit of green eucalyptus to add some contrast with Eleanor’s dress. I put more of the pink flowers into the bridesmaids’ posies so that they would stand out from their dresses and look different to Eleanor’s bouquet. I also added some stronger coloured asters, statice and pink alstroemeria. Most of the flowers were supplied by my English flower wholesaler. Here are some pictures of Eleanor and her bridesmaids looking absolutely lovely:

And here they are setting off from the church after the ceremony:

They were all heading for the hay wain which would take them to the reception. A hay wain is a kind of cart for conveying hay from one place to another and usually it is drawn by a horse. But in this case it was conveying people and it was drawn by a tractor! The hay wain was made comfortable with bales of hay to sit on and it had been decorated with bunting and flowers. Here are the bridal party getting onto the hay wain and then enjoying a glass of champagne as Trevor gets ready to drive the tractor up the road to Cilhowey:

The wedding guests arrived at Cilhowey first of all for a reception of bubbly and wedding cake. Cilhowey sits under rolling hills, and two marquees had been erected on the lawns – a gorgeous green setting. Guests were entertained first with welsh singing (Eleanor’s father, Michael, is the singer in the first picture with the buttonhole), then with French singing:

I was pleased to capture these lovely pictures of Emily (one of the flower girls) who is Eleanor’s niece, her mother Clare (Eleanor’s sister)with her brother Daniel and her father Dave. Daniel and Dave are both sporting their very handsome buttonholes. Clare seems to have picked up Emily’s posy at some stage!

Then here are a few pictures picking out the bridesmaids’ posies and Eleanor’s bouquet:

Later in the evening the guests moved along to the second marquee where the dinner was served. Tables were set up in long lines and Eleanor asked me to decorate them with jam jars filled with flowers. I painted the jam jars with a pretty pattern and tied them with string. Readers of my blog may remember that I developed this design in France last year – it seemed just right for the country wedding style and very fitting that the painted jam jar idea was born in France! I filled the jars with a mix of the same flowers that I used in the bouquet and the posies but added lots of flowers and foliage from our garden – mainly scabious, snapdragons, astrantia, box and rosemary. Here is a sample of the jam jars:

Then here is how they looked set up on one table:

The tables had all been given the names of French and Welsh cheeses (so guests could find their seats), for example Caerphilly and Roquefort:

It was a really big marquee and I made 26 flower filled jam jars! This picture tries to give a sense of how the whole marquee looked:

Finally, the main point of a wedding is to celebrate the glorious union of one woman with one man, and in the process they are surrounded by other attractive (and maybe marriageable!) young men and women. So, boys will be boys:

And girls will be beautiful!

Lisa's Wedding

It’s been an exciting summer for Meadowsweet. I`ve arranged the flowers for two beautiful weddings – Lisa’s and Eleanor’s. Both have been lovely occasions which I felt privileged to be part of……and I have learnt such a lot. Readers please bear with me as I am going to show you lots and lots of pictures. I will start with Lisa and Simon’s wedding which happened first – at the end of June. This first picture is of Lisa’s bouquet. She chose a white and blue colour scheme. I made it with gorgeous white bridal gladioli (the flowers that spike up from the bouquet), white stocks, white phlox and white roses. Then I added the blue contrast with veronica (the other spikey flower), agapanthus and cornflowers. Then I finished off the edge with some white gypsophila to give the whole bouquet a sense of lightness. The bridal bouquet really needs to stand out from the bridesmaid’s posies. I did this through shape and colour. You can see an example of one of the bridesmaid's posies below. It is made from roses, veronica, phlox and gypsophila so that it ties in with Lisa’s bouquet but then I have added dusky pink astrantia and pink dahlias to provide contrast.

There were four bridesmaids and the picture below shows Lisa’s bouquet and all the posies lined up on a shelf just before I handed them over. If you look carefully you will see that I have finished them off with lace and ribbon at the point where the stems are held together. Lisa’s bouquet stands out from the posies with its elegance and elongated shape. I used English flowers as far as possible in making the bouquet and the posies – the agapanthus, bridal gladioli, astrantia, cornflowers and pink dahlias were all from my English flower wholesaler and these were the stars of the show, giving the flowers a really fresh and unusual look.

The first flower job at a wedding is to meet up with all the men (the groom, best man and ushers) because they get to the church first and need their buttonholes pinned on. You also have to track down the father of the bride and any other important men on the bride’s side who need buttonholes. Simon wanted really simple buttonholes like a mini posy, just made out of one small white flower. I used gypsophila and tied it up with lace and string – this gave a lovely, light country feel. I was pleased that I had made such light buttonholes as the younger men had very narrow lapels and I don`t think they would have held a weighty single flower buttonhole. Here I am – the florist on the way to the bar to pin on the buttonholes!

Lisa and Simon were married at the Holy Trinity Church in Cookham which is not far from Henley. It is an old church believed to date back 1000 years and it is easy on the eye with its attractive stone and the simplicity of its form. The wedding took place on a warm, sunny day in late June and Lisa and the bridesmaids looked lovely – with their flowers adding to the colour and radiance of it all. Here are a few pictures of Lisa and the bridesmaids:

The men also looked sharp and sexy with their little white buttonholes:

And here are Lisa and Simon being driven away from the church in a classic car. I was pleased to get a glimpse through the window of Lisa with her bouquet as they set off to the reception.

The reception dinner was held at Ye Olde Bell, an old coaching inn in a small village called Hurley. This dates back to 1135 – it is a quirky, interesting building with pretty gardens and special areas for private gatherings. One of these is a characterful beamed tithe barn - this is where the dinner was held. Lisa and Simon wanted the barn to have a natural and unpretentious feel – with flowers being placed on the tables looking a bit like wild flowers in a jam jar. I achieved this by using 1 litre kilner jars that have an authentic, traditional look and are big enough not to be swamped by the size of the table. I filled these with English flowers – using the same flowers as in the bouquet and posies and also adding blue ageratum, white and pink alstroemeria, blue statice and mini suwari statice (pink) from my wholesaler. I also supplemented the jars with flowers from our garden – snapdragons, scabious, cornflowers, cosmos, ammi, alchemilla and valerian. I also added some foliage - pittosporum, box and ruscus to provide green contrast. Finally the jars were finished off with ribbon that matched the ribbon used in the place settings and in the bouquet and posies. All the jars were a bit different, but with a common feel to them all. Here are a few examples:

Here is how they looked in relation to everything else on the table:

There were 12 tables in the barn and this picture tries to give a feel of how the whole room looked:

Finally, Lisa and Simon asked me to decorate their ‘cheese cake’. This was made up of layers of round cheeses placed on top of each other. Again, they wanted a natural look. I made little mini posies of box, lavender, rosemary and parsley (all from our garden) tied with lace and string (to match the men’s buttonholes). Then I added a few fresh strawberries and blueberries….it all looked good enough to eat!

At the end of the evening the kilner jars were given away to wedding guests to take home….What a lovely touch to end a perfect day.