Today I have some flowers for you. Lots and lots of flowers. Partly to say happy Valentine's, and partly because I've finally got around to blogging about the wedding and today it's all about flowers!
We had a very lovely florist who was very flexible when I changed my mind a few times in the run up - only about minor things (to her - biiiig things to me!); David Austins instead of cascade roses, hessian & lace instead of chiffon, etc, etc. The florist was Poppies Designer Flowers in Chelmsford, and did a wonderful job of mine and the bridesmaids' bouquets, the buttonholes & corsages, and of course, the centrepieces and more that we had in the barn.
I fell in love with these cake stands the second I saw them in her portfolio - I'd been a little unsure about what I wanted for the guest tables, I was torn between rustic jugs of loose bouquets or even just a classic display with candlesticks and glass votives.
But when I saw these, I knew instantly that they were our centerpieces. Not only were they beautifully rustic and country, they also spoke to my love of white, my love of baking and my love of gardening, all in one! Luckily Paul loved these too and hey-presto - we were off!
Everything else just fell into place from that point - my decision to make the table runners, Paul's idea to make the leaf shaped confetti & place settings and my persuasion of him to let me make glitter table numbers, all combined flawlessly to create the tables we'd imagined.
Even the simple jars of gypsophelia and the pastel rose petals scattered across the entrance and cake tables were just beautiful. As I've said before, everything just came together wonderfully.
But when it came to the Church flowers, I made the decision to do these myself. I'm not quite sure what made me so OK about this extra pressure, I think it was mostly the price of adding a whole other journey and batch of flowers to the florist's invoice that I couldn't quite bring myself to do. Or, it could of course be the fact that playing with flowers is one of my very favourite things to do!
So, the Friday before the Sunday wedding, I got up bright and early to beat the shoppers and toddled off to Aldi and Tesco to gather some bunches of roses and gypsophelia to arrange for the Church myself.
Friday seemed to be the best day to do it; I certainly didn't want to worry about this the day before (remember how stressful that turned out to be anyway!?) but it also meant that the flowers would be fresh, but would still have time to open up, just in time for their crowning moment.
I think I probably actually spent a good 30 minutes just at the flower stand in Aldi. I was picking things up, pairing them together then changing my mind and putting things back. I really did think long and hard about how I wanted the arrangements to look. I'd already had an idea in my head -rustic and relaxed, in pastel shades (of course!), but my main battle was just figuring out how much to buy of everything, and were those pink roses too bright, would that extra bouquet make everything too pale, etc. etc. I was absolutely in love with those pink and green Aldi roses though - I'd seen them months before and had been crossing my fingers all summer hoping they'd be in stock still.
As the shoppers started to arrive a while later, I must say I got a lot of funny looks - people tend to shop in Aldi to save the pennies and there I was loading tonnes and tonnes of bouquets into my basket - and nothing else, at 8.30 on a Friday morning. In all fairness it must have looked a bit questionable!
I also had all of the bunches in one side of the basket, so that I could see them all together, which meant my weight distribution was pretty poor. So, yep, you guessed it, after half an hour of deciding and piling bunches into it, I picked the basket up to go to the till and low and behold, the bugger upended and my flowers went EVERYWHERE. Literally, everywhere. The shop assistant beside me laughed, I laughed, and I'm pretty sure anyone else that saw it would have laughed too. Crazy flower lady had no clear knowledge of basic physics. I think really, crazy flower lady was just too damn excited that she was allowed to buy as many flowers as she wanted AND she had as much time as she wanted to choose them - a rare luxury when you usually have a man in tow!
So those then got piled into the car, and off I went up to Tesco to get, yep, some more flowers. I don't think I found much there though, mostly just stocks in white & lilac that I'm so glad I chose to buy, despite being more than double the prices of Aldi's other bouquets. But stocks are some of my favourite flowers, and they smell wonderful - so it was another level of nice for my guests to enjoy too.
So the roses, phlox, freesias, carnations and stocks, along with some gypsophila that I'd pre ordered from my local florist, got popped into jam jars, bon bon jars, bottles and bunches and got dotted around the Church, by my wonderful team-badger. These joined the gorgeous displays done by the Church themselves, all coordinated perfectly with our colour scheme.
And the rest of my arrangements went on to the barn for the reception, where they were to grace one of my favourite pieces: the table plan.
I actually loved these flowers so much and I think secretly, they were my favourite. For they had a memory behind them; of my morning choosing them, to the afternoon spent sprawled out on the lounge floor popping hundreds of stems into every jar, that I'd spent the past few months decorating with hessian and lace. All after having had my bridal beauty treatments done that morning, and followed by a big family dinner at our favourite mexican restaurant that evening. The memories that I have from making these displays make them that much more special to me, plus I was incredibly impressed with how they all turned out!
I wish you a wonderful Valentine's day with eternal love & peace! Oh, and flowers too - eternal flowers!
Much love from all of us here at Badgertails HQ.
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