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Favourite Natural Wedding Flowers: bouquets, buttonholes, flower crowns, wedding hair flowers, and floral arrangements

Charlie

We hope you’re enjoying our Real Wedding Favourites mini series, looking back at some of the loveliest details from the weddings featured on our blog. If you’d like some inspiration do check out the series so far. From bride and groom wedding styles, to wedding ceremony and reception spaces. From beautiful wedding details to some of the most unique weddings we’ve featured.

Today we’re sharing our Favourite Natural Wedding Flowers. Gosh what a hard post this was to create! Narrowing down to just a handful of our favourites was incredibly difficult, because we love flowers. Hopefully this post will give you a taste of what kinds of British grown, seasonal wedding flower inspiration you can find on our blog.

Our Favourite Wedding Bouquets

A Bee-Friendly Wildflower Wedding Bouquet

Miriam was one of our TNWC Real Brides and I loved her passion for incorporating seasonal, locally-grown and bee-friendly blooms into her wedding day. Her wild summer bouquet has always stuck with me, it seems like a genuine representation of the ever-popular ‘just picked’ bouquet style.

It incorporates some really beautiful blooms – blue borage flowers, white cosmos, hot pink honeysuckle, yellow dill flowers, and delicate foxgloves. They all come together in this heavenly meadow-garden bouquet that truly captured the bee-friendly element that Miriam was passionate about.

Charlie’s favourite wedding bouquet comes from Miriam and John’s Scottish 1920’s wildflower inspired wedding. Bouquet by Pyrus. Photography by Photos by Zoe.

Charlie

Laura and Jamie’s autumn village hall wedding with statement flower crown, emerald green bridesmaid dresses and a squirrel cake topper

Charlie

In nature, autumn is a blaze of vibrant colours and this week’s Real Wedding is all about those quintessential autumnal colours. Emerald green bridesmaid dresses, rusty orange leaves, plump purple blackberries, soft brown fur and deep red dahlias. This autumn village hall wedding is a feast for the senses too; the textures are intense with pheasant feathers, ears of wheat and berries adorning the dahlia bouquets, buttonholes and hair clips.

Captured by TNWC recommended photographer, Amy Taylor Imaging, Laura and Jamie’s autumn village hall wedding is the product of a whole community coming together and pitching in. The ceremony took place in her parent’s tiny local church and the celebrations unfolded in the village hall in which her youth clubs were hosted when she was a teenager.

We chat to bride Laura to find out more about the their special day…

Autumn village hall wedding

Charlie

A spring wedding shoot with flower crowns of spring blossom and rustic bouquets of tulips and bluebells

Charlie

Back in the spring I attended a spring blossom flower crown workshop run by my friend Rachel of Catkin Flowers. It was held in the beautiful surroundings of Doddington Hall in Lincolnshire, which is where Rachel has her base growing flowers in the old walled garden – it truly is as beautiful as it sounds.

A group of us had great fun creating our own unique flower crowns with spring flowers that Rachel had gathered for us, in particular a variety of blossoms from the spectacular cherry and crab apples that were blooming outside.

After the workshop Rachel put together a mini shoot in the gardens of Doddington Hall and I was invited to go along, and even got roped in for a few pictures – who could say no beneath that stunning tree dripping with pink blossom?

Charlie

A romantic Flower Fairy inspired wedding with gypsophila flower crown and woodland themed wedding reception

Charlie

I had another blog feature planned for today, but then I found out it is my colleague Samantha’s fourth wedding anniversary today, and naturally I felt that sharing some snippets from her beautiful wedding was much more appropriate.

Samantha came into my life a couple of years ago when I was looking for someone to become a blog features writer – up until that point it had just been me running The Natural Wedding Company directory and writing the blog. I loved her enthusiasm and obvious love for weddings, I loved that she had become a mum at a similar time to me and had a little boy near in age to my little girl, and I loved that she had been inspired by childhood books The Flower Fairies for her wedding.

Whilst we don’t get to see each other very much because we live at opposite ends of the country, she has become such an important part of my life and the fabric and future of The Natural Wedding Company. So today while she celebrates four years of marriage with her husband Paul, our blog will celebrate that day four years ago when they said their “I do’s”.

Here’s to celebrating true love (these two are truly my idols when it comes to romance – you’ll see what I mean from Paul’s proposal) and to living out our girlhood dreams of being Flower Fairies. Put on a suitable romantic song, turn it up loud and enjoy this sweet celebration of marriage. Over to Samantha for a few snippets from her wedding…

A wedding inspired by The Flower Fairies

I have deep down (ok, not that deep down) always wished to be a flower fairy, therefore wanted to create the feeling of a magical world in the depths of the woods for everyone to enjoy. Luckily Paul didn’t even bat an eyelid when I suggested that we go for a woodland inspired ‘theme’ which would feature giant strawberries.

Charlie

Felt flower crowns for flower girls straight from the pages of Brambly Hedge and The Flower Fairies

Charlie

We are huge advocates for real British grown cut flowers, but these sweet felt flower crowns for your little flower girls captured my heart. I first spotted them over on Instagram when Samantha at Proverbial Daisies tagged me in a post. I loved their soft muted colours, that they were handmade by a fellow mummy, and that they offered something a bit different.

Brambly Hedge meets The Flower Fairies

Aren’t they beautiful? In my opinion they look like a cross between Brambly Hedge and The Flower Fairies, and any regular reader will know I have a soft spot for both of those books.

Charlie

Wild strawberry and white nigella flower crown for an early summer bride

Charlie

This wild strawberry and white nigella flower crown is pretty much perfection in my books, and my feeling is you’ll agree. It is pretty rare that I genuinely see wedding inspiration these days that I wish I’d incorporated into my own wedding – this is one of those rare ideas.

I first spotted this flower crown over on Instagram, from A Harem of Peacock’s account that is just so achingly beautiful. Imagine Brambly Hedge and the Flower Fairies all come to life and you are on your way to the prettiness that Kelly-Marie creates and shares.

It was this flower crown, with it’s tiny wild strawberries (some blushed red, others still white), frothy white nigella flowers, strawberry leaves and still-green nigella seedheads, that captured my gaze. I knew I had to ask permission from Kelly-Marie to share it all with you as it’s one of those ideas that I am convinced at least one of you lovely natural brides would love to recreate for you own wedding.

Kelly-Marie gathered the nigella and wild strawberries from her garden and used a ribbon wrapped crown, this was a practice run for an up-coming wedding this summer she is hoping to replicate it for. You absolutely should check out more of Kelly-Marie’s work, either on her blog A Harem Of Peacocks or her Instagram account. It’s also worth noting that she’s the in-house florist at Deans Court in Dorset and a freelance floral stylist.

Charlie

Pre-Raphaelite and Flower Fairy inspired loose and natural wedding bouquets and seasonal flower crowns

Charlie

Pre-Raphaelite and Flower Fairy inspired loose and natural wedding bouquets

What a treat we have today, featuring an array of beautiful floral wedding ideas inspired by dreamy pre-Raphaelite paintings and a sprinkle of fairy magic from Cicely Mary Barker’s ever-loved Flower Fairies.

Shot against the evocative backdrop of Doddington Hall, an Elizabethan manor house in Lincolnshire, the floral designs were created by our friend Rachel at Catkin, using all homegrown blooms from the walled garden she tends to on site.

Rachel is a long-standing member of the British Flowers community, so putting English grown, seasonal flowers at centre stage was vital.

The flowers she chose – garden roses, scabious, cornflowers, nigella, sweet peas, pinks, astilbe, larkspur, ammi and daisies – all contributed to the ethereal look Rachel was after, imbuing her floral creations with natural movement and texture.

Charlie

Delicate and romantic seasonal wedding hair flowers – beautiful alternatives to the flower crown

Charlie

A couple of weeks ago I was travelling around Devon and Cornwall visiting TNWC businesses, and as part of that roadtrip I got to spend a whole day with the lovely ladies at The Garden Gate Flower Company (you can read more about it here). We had made plans to do a little shoot of seasonal wedding hair flowers, and despite the fact that it was a wet and windy day on the farm, we were undeterred.

Flower crowns have been a popular wedding trend for over a year now, and don’t seem to be going away any time soon. Whilst I absolutely love them, I noticed they were getting bigger and bolder, and felt that I would never have felt confident or comfortable to pull off a flower crown like that for my wedding. It got me wanting to share some inspiration for more subtle and understated hair flowers, yet still incredibly beautiful.

Becca and Maz at The Garden Gate Flower Company equally loved the idea, especially as they’ve had more and more brides this year asking for more demure hair flowers, so it was a great opportunity to try out their ideas. We were joined on this wild June day by Louise and Teo from Taylor & Porter Photographs who have captured Becca and Maz’s designs exquisitely.

Louise and Teo have recently relocated to Cornwall and their photography business Taylor & Porter Photographs is quite special – why? Because they only shoot on vintage cameras using film. With at least six of us huddled in the polytunnel at The Garden Gate Flower Company for the shoot, it was pretty magical listing to the whizz and click of Louise and Teo’s vintage cameras.

Somehow I ended up ‘modelling’ a number of the hair flowers, which wasn’t my intention, but my long hair wound me up in the styling seat when Becca and Maz’s friend who was going to model for us had to leave early. I am not one for having my photo taken, especially when I’m not prepared with a bit of make-up and less windswept hair – I’m hoping the hair flowers are so stunning you don’t even notice me!

Enough talking, over to the flowers…

Charlie

Chloe and Nick’s relaxed seaside Devon wedding with natural seasonal ‘just picked’ flowers and a jasmine flower crown

Charlie

Relaxed seaside Devon wedding

I am really delighted to be bringing you another exclusive real wedding to the blog today. This wedding was shared with me via the lovely Chloe from BareBlooms, a TNWC flower farmer, as it was not only a wedding she did the flowers for, but she was also a guest as the bride (also called Chloe) and groom are friends of hers.

Bride and groom Chloe and Nick were really relaxed about their wedding day and wanted a simple celebration with just a few lovely details – it’s quite refreshing when it’s so easy to get bombarded by detail heavy weddings seen on so many wedding blogs.

Over to bride Chloe to share their pretty wedding day with you…

Chloe and Nick got married last June in Devon, which they chose because it was the place where they met: “Nick was at Dartington College of Arts and I was working in Exeter, my mum, stepdad and gran live in Exeter and all our friends are mostly based in the south of England, so we felt that Devon was a natural choice.”

Charlie

Heavenly midsummer photoshoot in a field of cow parsley with pink rose flower crowns

Charlie

Today’s blog feature is just so pretty and I’m delighted to be able to share this series of photos from photographer Svetlana Batura (who you may recently remember from this gorgeous Lithuanian family farm wedding). I spied them on her blog and asked if I might share them, as I know there is a good following amongst you who love cow parsley as much as I do.

These images take me back to an imagined childhood and provide some nice inspiration for bridesmaids for a relaxed wedding – long skirts, pretty blouses, flowers in their hair and a bouquet of cow parsley. Bliss. Enjoy…

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