2013

Here at The Natural Wedding Company I love to promote seasonality, and to encourage and inspire couples to choose to plan their weddings fitting in with the season whether that be flowers, food, or decorations.  Choosing seasonal blooms for your wedding flowers is one way to reduce the environmental impact of your big day (rather than imported flowers), as well as reflecting the beautiful and varied times of year.

Recently on my Facebook feed I’ve been seeing one particular spring flower popping up in bouquets from various TNWC flower businesses – the snake’s head fritillary.  This very dainty bell like bloom is a native English flower that makes it appearance during the spring months.

Following on from my previous floral ‘odes’ (‘an ode to violets’ and ‘an ode to old-fashioned roses’) today I’m going to showcase the snake’s head fritillary.  From bouquets and buttonholes to table centrepieces, I’m going to show you how you can incorporate it into your spring wedding.

Image: The Garden Gate Flower Company

I’m delighted to have put together this feature on the snake’s head fritillary with the help of some of my talented TNWC flower businesses.  As I know many of you are planning your wedding and searching for a florist who grows their own or sources local British blooms, I’ve included their details and where they are based in the country as all of them provide stunning flowers for weddings.

Bouquets and Posies

When it comes to wedding flowers what better place to start than with bouquets.  Every bride needs a bouquet and I have a beautiful selection here to showcase all featuring the dainty snake’s head fritillary.

First up this seasonal spring bouquet from Susanne at The Blue Carrot based down in Cornwall. Along with the snake’s head fritillary, Susanne used the following homegrown flowers: parrot, double and single tulips from her tunnel; hellebores; narcissi, ranunculus; and feverfew.  She also added a few sprays of jasmine, which she bought as a plant from B&Q and used the cuttings.

Flowers: The Blue Carrot

Here’s a close up of this beautiful bouquet – I particularly love how Susanne combines colour, with the sweet shop pastels set off by the addition of those deep, velvety purple hellebores.

Flowers: The Blue Carrot

Read more

2013

*This ticket giveaway is now closed 12:00 09/05/13*

Evening lovely friends!  You might have heard that this weekend in London it’s the first ever Etsy UK Wedding Event, and it looks set to be a cracking day.  I’ve got five pairs of tickets to the afternoon to giveaway to some of my lucky readers, so keep reading to find out how you could get your mitts on a pair.

The Etsy Wedding Event is taking place in Soho in London this Saturday 11th May 2013, and will be full of wedding inspiration, including a selection of unique handmade and vintage items.  I’m told there will be a little bit of everything on show from decor and dresses to stationery and tableware!

Here’s one of my Etsy wedding inspiration boards as featured on the Etsy blog this week

As well as a selection of handpicked Etsy sellers there will DIY workshops running throughout the day.  Hosted by Parapluie Events, these DIY workshops will let you have a go at making a selection of wedding decorations from colour themed pom-poms to bride and groom pegs.

Read more

2013

Our lovely TNWC Real Brides are really planning some most beautiful things for their weddings, and today Myfanwy is no exception as she tells you about the stunning wedding favours they are making (wish I was a guest at this wedding!).  

This week we just have the one TNWC Real Bride post but will be back next week to hear from Caroline who is into the final countdown to her wedding which is a week on Saturday!  I can’t wait to hear what’s her and her Mr-to-be Gareth are up to in their last week.

Over to Myfawny to tell us about these gorgeous wedding favours her and Tom have been making…

Within a few days of being engaged we’d decided on our favours, Tom tells it differently, he says I told him about the favours… I’m sure he volunteered!

Tom is a potter and has been for nearly 10 years now, his style is very unique and exceptionally fine pottery for hand thrown work.  His normal range is exquisite kitchen ware.  When we opened our tea shop Tom decided to make a range of new jugs that we could use and sell in the shop, serving milk to customers in them.

These have proven extremely popular, I personally use them as mini vases for flowers.  Everyone enjoys these jugs so much and Tom told me they were relatively easy make so we’ve decided these will be our favours!

Read more

2013

Happy Bank Holiday Monday everyone!  I hope you’ve had a great weekend so far and are enjoying the extra day off from work and that the sun is shining for you.

You may have read my previous post on this apple farm wedding (if you haven’t, you must go have a look), well there was another idea from that wedding that I really wanted to share.  The couple chose birdseed as their confetti and packaged them up in these dainty little glassine envelopes with a pretty label.

I love the idea of birdseed confetti because like flower petal confetti it either bio-degrades or in the case of birdseed gets eaten up by the local bird population.  With some churches and venues reluctant to have confetti because of the misinterpreted ‘mess’ it will cause (and I completely understand why you wouldn’t want that old kind of plastic confetti blowing about) choosing an option like birdseed of dried flower petals is a great alternative.

Read more

2013

Usually I take the day off from a blog post on Saturday, but whilst sitting here working I came across this beautiful piece of inspiration that I couldn’t help but share with you.

I particularly love the month of May and all the flowers that bloom in our gardens and hedgerows. I especially love fruit tree blossom, and with my little apple tree just starting to blossom this week, and my crab apple tree not far behind, this heavenly shoot reminded me of all those reasons I love May so much.

Read more

2013

I’m sure by now everyone in England is living in hope that this warm, sunny weather will last a few more days, at least over the bank holiday – fingers-crossed!  Yesterday was May Day although with the delayed growth it doesn’t feel like we can really be into May already.  It was also my husband’s birthday yesterday, so I can always remember what we did year to year, and a few years ago we’d had a lovely birthday picnic amongst the bluebells – of which there is no sight of yet.

What could be prettier than a wedding cake decorated with white, pale green and soft blue flowers?  I am a big fan of scabious and love these powder blue ones on this cake.  I’ve also spotted a few frothy heads of ammi or Queen’s Anne lace, which have that cow parsley-esque feel to them and will always be popular on this blog.

I like how the cake is finished off with a dusky gold small tier, and I’m even endeared by the china figurine cake topper – the kind you see on your granny’s mantelpiece - it fits well with the wedding cake and is a sweet touch.

Read more

2013

I hope you are all enjoying reading the wedding adventures of our TNWC Real Brides – they are all planning such varied but personal days and I can’t believe that it’s almost time for some of them to actually get married!  Today we have the lovely Nik who is planning a two part wedding and she’s got some fab ideas for being thrifty with your wedding flowers….enjoy!

Tick Tock!

Before I launch into today’s post, I just wanted announce that there’s only just over two months to go ’til we say “I do”!!

This is both terrifying and very exciting.  On the one hand, soon I will be married to the love of my life, which is indescribably surreal and wonderful; but on the other hand, I’m a terrible coordinator in charge of the biggest day of my own life, and am constantly terrified that I’m forgetting something important!  I hope this is a normal fear, and I keep reminding myself that we want a simple, relaxed day and that the ONLY important thing is that we come away from it married to one another.

All Things Floral

This month, I thought I’d give you a rundown of the many ways we plan to feature flowers/plants in our wedding celebrations.  With our wedding being split into two parts, two days apart, it was crucial that we came up with floristry solutions that would ensure we could decorate both our venues, but that also fit within our relatively small budget of £200.

Fortunately, I’m not a fan of huge arrangements or expensive blooms – I much prefer a rustic, simple, ‘thrown in a tin can’ kind of feel and adore wild flowers and abundant foliage, so I’m happy to go with a ‘whatever I can get my hands on’ approach.

Read more