hand tied bouquet

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gothic-wedding-ideas-mood-board

I’ve put together some ideas to give your gothic wedding a dramatic and mysterious style, based around a colour scheme of reds and black.  Picking a suitable venue will help you achieve a gothic look more easily; Victorian buildings or medieval castles are perfect.  If you can’t find a gothic venue that’s within budget don’t panic, there are plenty of things you can do to transform a venue into a gothic masterpiece.  Lighting plays a big part for gothic weddings; low light with candles will help create the right ambience.

You can really go to town dressing your tables for a gothic theme.  You might want to book the services of a venue dressing company or event planner to provide most of the items as they will be able to hire them to you. To dress your tables, hire black cloths and team with red and black accessories.  Linen companies can provide baroque print table cloths like the one on the mood board, the fabric gives a luxurious opulent feel.

red-rose-bouquet-with-ivy

For your centrepieces you could use black candelabras with Ivy wrapped around the arms.  Or for floral centrepieces stack some vintage horror books on the table and place a collection of apothecary bottles on them, place single flowers in the bottles in black, deep reds and purples.  You can’t really get a true black flower but some purple and red flowers are so dark they appear black so they are named as black.  Deep red flowers include black dahlias, black baccara roses, and chocolate cosmos which are a velvety red/chocolate colour.  Dark purple flowers include schwarzwälder or black forest calla lily, queen of the night tulip and moonvista carnation.

Use red charger plates, black napkins and ornate goblets to continue the theme.  Calligraphy is perfect for a gothic look so have your place cards written by a calligraphist.  Miniature potion or apothecary bottles would work well for favours.  If you want to make your own favours make some sloe gin and decant into bottles with personalised labels.

apothecary-bottle-favours

Mood board supplies:

Carmen rose bouquet – theflowerco.co.uk

Mixed wedding bouquet – anastasiaehlers.com, photography Anne Nunn

Red wedding dress – gothic4weddings.blogspot.co.uk by KMKdesings.org

Black baroque fabric – Robert Kaufman fabric

Black candlestick – clevelandaccessories.co.uk

Invitation – royalsteamline.com

Wedding cake – Cake Girls via realsimple.com

Wedding favour bottles – labouroflovepreserves.co.uk

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stock

Common name:  Stock, Gillyflowers

Botanical Names: Matthiola

Origin: Mediterranean and Egypt

Colours: white, pink, crimson, cream, purple and lilac

The botanical name for stock is Matthiola, it is named after Dr Matthioli a 16th century physician and botanist who identified it.  It was transported to England where it was later identified as a member of the Brassicaceae (mustard) family. Stocks have been popular in gardens since Elizabethan times, their name symbolises lasting beauty and bonds of affection.

Matthiola Incana is one of the species we commonly see as cut flowers, it can have single or double flowers with long grey green leaves, there are around 54 other species. It is a popular cut flower and is favoured for it’s amazing fragrance.  The flower spikes open from the bottom upwards and usually last 5-8 days as cut flowers.  They will last longer if their leaves are removed below the water line and the water is changed frequently.

pink stocks

As cut flowers stocks are used in many types of floristry from gift bouquets to weddings and funerals.  They look lovely on their own or mixed with other spring or summer flowers.  Just a few stocks in an arrangement will give a pleasing fragrance.  They are used a lot in weddings because of their elegant shape and perfume, and particularly suit the vintage theme popular for weddings at the moment.  You can often get gorgeous British grown stocks in the summer months, they’re lovely in simple mixed designs with summer flowers and herbs.

stocks in a summer bouquet

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Breaking Dawn wedding ceremony

Image source Wedding Inspirasi

In the previous blog we had a quick look at the stunning flowers used for Edward and Bella’s wedding.  The designer Tammy Polatsek went to town with the natural woodland theme .  Thousands of flowers were using to make the wedding set, but don’t despair you can re-create the fabulous look without a big film budget.  To help keep your flower costs sensible try to use ivory flowers that are in season when you get married.  The flowers used in the film included roses, delphiniums, stocks, sweet peas, hyacinths, ranunculus, freesia, cherry blossom, wisteria and viburnum along with umbrella ferns, and lots of moss.

Bella's wedding bouquet

Image source Twitter

Bella carried a simple hand tied bouquet packed with beautiful ivory flowers.  It must have smelt truly scrumptious, it contained hyacinths, freesia, stocks and ranunculus.  Freesia and ranunculus also make beautiful buttonholes with a couple of simple leaves.  Although you can’t currently get married in a forest in the UK, you can get around this by having a legal ceremony in register office, and then having your ‘real’ big day with all your friends and family at a later date in your favourite woodland. Or you can of course bring the great outdoors inside.  Create a woodland feel by lining your aisle with tall branches with mossed arrangements at the base and flowers arranged to look as if they are growing.

Viburnum

The floral arch in Breaking Dawn was breath taking; it was very tall and packed with flowers.  It featured delphiniums, cherry blossom and other white flowers.  The arch in the film was so full with flowers, it would be budget busting for most brides.  A scaled down version could still feature lots of gorgeous flowers but with a bit more foliage and moss.  Many florists will have an arch structure that they decorate and hire out for weddings.

Ranunculus

The reception tables had a very natural organic looking design on them, but they were quite tall and sprawling, so the plates and tableware were very close to the edge of the tables.  Things can get knocked over when the table is that full and if your guests can’t see across the tables they may even move your lovely flowers elsewhere.  I would opt for a design with the candelabra at the centre of the table and have the flowers around the base, arranged in a natural style with lots of moss and foliage.

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The royal wedding is only a few weeks away now and the whole country is eagerly awaiting the big day. We brits don’t need much of an excuse for a party, but a royal wedding is as good a reason as any. Admittedly, for some the excitement is due to an extended break from work, tagging the Easter holidays onto the royal wedding weekend.  But I can’t wait to see what Kate will choose for her flowers and dress.

It has been banded about that Prince William and Kate might decide to go for British flowers, which would highlight the gorgeous cut flowers we can produce in Britain.  It’s a little early in the year for some British grown flowers, so they would be limited to spring pretties if they did choose to stick with just home grown flowers.  I would love to see William and Kate go for British flowers, and a selection of spring flowers would be beautiful.  Tulips, anemones, hyacinths, narcissi and lily of the valley are all available in April.

Lily of the valley wedding bouquet

When Camilla married Charles, Prince of Wales in 2005, she carried a pretty wired posy of lily of the valley and primroses for her bouquet.  The wedding was quite low key and her petite bouquet reflected this.  It included some Myrtle from Queen Victoria’s Garden on the Isle of Wight. Queen Victoria included a sprig of Myrtle in her wedding bouquet and then planted the Myrtle in her garden afterwards.  Since then all royal brides have included Myrtle in their bouquets including Queen Elizabeth II and Diana, Princess of Wales.  Myrtle is said to be the herb of love and is thought to bring good luck.  It is expected Kate will include Myrtle in her bouquet too.

Kate’s flower choices will obviously depend a lot of the type of dress she wears.  If she picks a fairy tale style dress with a large full skirt she may choose a trailing shower bouquet to balance the dress.  This type of bouquet is usually thought of as more traditional.  Shower bouquets have seemed to be out of fashion for many years as handtied bouquets were so popular.  But teardrop shape bouquets have been making a comeback recently, either as a smaller more compact version with a lot less fussy foliage or as a very modern waterfall design constructed on a decorative wire base with minimal flowers wired on.

Teardrop wedding bouquet

My bet for Kate’s flower style is understated elegance.  I think she will go for a teardrop shaped bouquet in neutral colours, not a large bouquet with long foliage like Princess Diana had, but a simpler contemporary version.  Most spring flowers are not very well suited to trailing bouquets as they are wired, so I’m not sure Kate will pick British flowers, since she would have to use spring flowers at this time of year.

Whatever flowers Prince William and Kate decide on for their big day, I’m sure they will be fabulous.  Kate always looks very elegant and stylish.  I just hope the sun shines for them on the 29th.

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rose bouquet

The bridal bouquet and bride’s maid’s flowers are usually quite time consuming to make, these are the types of designs that require all of florists experience and talent.  Every bridal bouquet is different and some take several hours to prepare and construct.  Wired teardrop bouquets for example consist of many small pieces including flowers, leaves, decorative wire or beads.  Every single flower and piece of foliage is painstakingly wired with different gauges of wire depending on the size and weight of the flower and then taped to seal in moisture.  The buttonholes are also time consuming as they are also wired and taped.  The afternoon before a wedding often turns into a very late day putting the finishing touches to designs and preparing toolboxes and props to take with us for assembling any designs that have to be put together on site at the church or wedding reception.

On the morning of the wedding it’s all hustle and bustle.  We check the itinerary for delivery times so we know where we have to be at specific points of the day.  The ribbon on the bride’s bouquet and bride’s maids bouquets are finished off once they have been taken out of water, and carefully packaged for transporting to the bride.  After a final check over all the other designs we are ready to pack up the van for delivering the flowers.  Packing the van can be a challenge itself, to get everything in safely and positioned so it won’t fall over or crush any other designs en route.  The bridal flowers are normally delivered to the bride one to two hours before the wedding.  I like to deliver the bride’s bouquet personally to ensure the bride is delighted with the flowers and advise her how to hold her bouquet.

After delivering the bridal flowers the next stop is the church or ceremony room.  Usually the men’s buttonholes are delivered to the ceremony.  We attach pew ends arrangements and position other arrangements like pedestal flowers or garlands.  We have to set up the ceremony flowers and leave before the guests arrive.  If the groom and ushers arrive early they usually need a little help attaching their buttonholes.  Next stop is the reception venue.

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