Emma and Chris were married at the end of March at the historic, landmark wedding venue of Blackfriars Priory, located a stones throw from the industrial Gloucester docks. I love the contrast of venue and surrounding area and it definitely set the scene for a wedding full of personality and individual details.
Thank you to Emma and Chris for choosing me to flower your wedding and to Howell Jones for the gorgeous photography.
Blackfriars Priory
It's always so important to fully consider the wedding venue when designing wedding flowers. Emma and Chris were married in the impressive North Range, a huge and light filled space with lots of gothic character. In such a big space it is a good idea to focus on one or two key areas.
The ceremony was held at one end of the space, with the wedding breakfast taking place at the other. Both ends of the range have original fire places and these seemed perfectly placed for a floral focus. We decided on floral meadows that could easily be moved from one end to the other, these were created using sustainable methods, vessels with water and chicken wire so all the flowers stayed nicely hydrated and the bride was able to take lots of flowers away the next day.
Ceremony Flowers
The flowers for the fireplace meadows and bridal bouquet were inspired by natural, bright spring colours. Emma and Chris were really relaxed about the colour palette and flower choices, they just wanted seasonally inspired, colourful flowers that reflected the joy and romance of their day.
I chose quintessential spring flowers like white double tulips, pink, peach and white ruffled ranunculus, huge ethereal icelandic poppies in tangerine, pink and blush and deliciously scented broom blossom, teamed with blousy spray roses in pink and peach. To pick up the blue from the dining tables (more on this later!) I also worked in some blue delphiniums which really gave the meadows that natural garden style.
Table Decor for the Wedding Breakfast
Emma and her mum crocheted beautiful table decorations in shades of powder blue. To really make a feature of the blue we stuck to mainly white flowers in bud vases, with just a tiny amount of colour sprinkled throughout. The contemporary glass on one side of the North Range lets beautiful light in which really made the mis-matched bud vases glimmer and shine.
Hey Pesto Catering were cooking up a storm whilst we were swapping the flowers from one end of the North Range to the other, I'm always a bit disappointed I can't stay to sample the food!
Emma's bridal flowers
The bridal bouquet is without doubt the most important creation of a wedding florist, I wanted Emma's bouquet to pick up on the elements of spring I had incorporated into the installation flowers, pinks and peaches were the main colours with a lovely long trail of mid-blue ribbon to tie in with the table decor and chair decoration.
I love to use scented flowers, particularly in bridal work, the scented broom blossom and garden spray roses made this bouquet smell delicious!
Emma's bridesmaids wore navy blue and rather than bridesmaid bouquets I created 4 slightly different wrist corsages using flowers to complement the bridal bouquet and buttonholes.
It was an absolute pleasure to be part of Emma and Chris's day, the lasting impression I went home with was that theirs was a day full of authentic joy and masses of love, just perfect!
Thanks for reading!
Poppy x