edible flowers Archives - The Natural Wedding Company

Blog: edible flowers

Charlie

Chloe and Sam’s modern spring woodland wedding with earthy organic decor, gold dipped feathers, and lush green and white florals

Charlie

This week’s modern spring woodland wedding is incredibly beautiful. There are mismatched chairs under waxed scaffold-board tables, gold-dipped feathers, vintage candlestick holders and garlands of greenery. Every single element of this wedding is carefully planned yet natural and organic. It’s a strong contender for my favourite Real Wedding so far (and it’s the final one of 2016) and I just love that they did it all themselves.

We first met Chloe and Sam when the gorgeous couple featured in this rainy romantic Cornish wedding shoot back in March. I think we all knew then that their wedding would be a beauty and it certainly hasn’t disappointed.

Bride Chloe tells us more about their modern spring woodland wedding…

Charlie

Spring Eco Wedding Festival with a cherry blossom chandelier and rustic tablescapes from Wedding Yurts

Charlie

I have had the pleasure of knowing Lizzie from Wedding Yurts for nearly five years now, and everything she creates is pure magic. When I heard she was putting on an Open Week in Herefordshire, I knew I want to visit, to see what delights she had been dreaming up, and to catch up (as best you can with a two and a half year old in tow).

I wasn’t disappointed. My little girl had a magical time running around this beautiful rural spot at Wye Valley Weddings and I soaked up the atmosphere inside Lizzie’s stunning yurts, with their wooden floors and rustic decorations.

As part of their Open Week, Lizzie had pulled together some incredible teams of suppliers to create so inspirational wedding shoots. One of those shoots was a Spring Eco Wedding Festival with a down-to-earth natural style, and featuring wedding suppliers who all weave an eco-friendly ethos into their business. I particular love the simple but striking table design with terracotta pots of herbs and those tiny chai bowls holding tealights.

Lizzie’s work is the kind of style I’d like to have at my own wedding or party, so I’m sure you’ll be as inspired as I am by today’s Spring Eco Wedding Festival shoot.

Charlie

A creative and practical guide to making an edible leaf wedding cake

Charlie

I was blown away by this unusually decorated wedding cake with its edible leaves, a fantastic collaboration between TNWC recommended supplier Maddocks Farm Organics and Bees Bakery. If you’ve read our blog for any length of time you’ll know we are big fans of edible flowers, but edible leaves on a wedding cake? It may sound odd, but as you can see from this beautiful cake it creates the most stunning effect. It is both modern and natural, and feels like it could have been painted on. I particularly like the combination of purples and greens used.

Sourcing Edible Flowers For Wedding Cakes

Whilst this is a design you could ask a wedding cake maker to create for you, Maddocks Farm Organics have helpfully given some tips on how to do it yourself. Firstly, it’s important to remember these key points about using edible leaves:

Flowers and leaves should not be eaten unless sourced from a reputable organic supplier of edible varieties (we recommend these edible flower suppliers).
Many flowers and leaves are poisonous and can cause a whole range of serious symptoms if ingested. Even if you don’t plan to eat them, it is wise not to attach them to any food items in case they are mistaken for being edible when they are not. Even if they are just decoration, sap or fine hairs could leech onto your cake and cause irritation.
Do not be tempted to pick up supermarket or regular floristry flowers to decorate your cake. They are routinely sprayed with chemicals that you absolutely do not want to be ingesting or touching your wedding cake.

So when sourcing your edible flowers or leaves, ensure that you 1) buy from a reputable organic supplier; 2) Ask your supplier how they are grown, picked and processed; and 3) Discuss with your supplier how you want to use them.

How To Use Edible Leaves On Wedding Cakes

With that in mind, here’s Maddocks Farm Organics top tips on how to use edible leaves on your wedding cake:

Edible leaves work best when pressed into buttercream.
They should be added to your cake on the day of your wedding.
Choose from organically grown leaves, herbs and wild foragings.
Use clover shaped and fern shaped edible leaves in a variety of shades to create a striking design (like the one above).
More robust varieties include rosemary and lavender (examples below, but please note I am not sure if any of the other flowers/leaves shown on the cakes are suitable, as per the advice above – please check with your supplier).

Samantha

Delicious edible flower inspiration for savoury dishes to wow your wedding guests

Samantha

Did you see the beautiful edible flower inspiration we brought to you last week? The inspiration we have for you today is just as lovely, but takes on a more unusual twist. Ever thought about serving flowers with a fish dish? No me neither!

These beautiful images are a collaboration between two of our lovely recommended suppliers from our directory; gorgeous edible flowers and herbs by Greens of Devon and all perfectly styled and captured by the talented Betti Confetti Photography.

Inspired by Italian and Mediterranean al fresco dining, these mouthwatering images prove that pretty flowers aren”t just for topping the wedding cake. They are so effective at adding the finish touch to every dish throughout your big day!

Samantha

Beautiful edible flower inspiration of sweet treats and cocktails to wow your wedding guests

Samantha

Edible flower inspiration of sweet treats and cocktails

One of the loveliest things about our website is meeting and connecting with such wonderful wedding suppliers and locally run companies. And it is even lovelier when our directory’s recommended suppliers go on to create gorgeous things together!

What we have for you today is the MOST beautiful edible flower inspiration; with edible flowers and herbs by Greens of Devon captured by the talented Betti Confetti Photography.

Providing ideas for how to incorporate edible flowers into your wedding day bubbly and sweet treats, these simple touches will not fail to add that little extra magic and will certainly amaze all your guests!

You can read part 2 here >> Delicious edible flower for savoury dishes to wow your guests

Charlie

Pastel iced doughnuts decorated with edible crystallised primroses, cowslips and violas for a spring wedding treat

Charlie

Pastel iced doughnuts decorated with crystallised edible flowers and mini chocolate eggs? Could these be any more pretty and totally perfect for a spring wedding.

Made by TNWC Recommended Supplier Eat My Flowers, inspired by Martha Stewart, these doughnuts are made using bought doughnuts, a simple icing, and crystallised flowers. I would love to try this out with mini ring doughnuts (if such a thing exists!) – packaged in individual brown craft boxes wouldn’t they make lovely wedding favours? In fact I don’t think they’d make it home!

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: Emma’s beautiful DIY wedding details from viola pops to gold animals on their tables

Charlie

Back in July our lovely TNWC Real Bride Emma got married in a beautiful wedding in the heart of Liverpool. Emma is back today to share some stunning pictures from their wedding day and the final few details they made. In Emma’s first blog post she said:

“It might seem a contradiction, a natural wedding in the city, but I’m determined we can made it happen!” And I’m sure you’ll agree from the snippets below that her and Shane most definitely made it happen.

Over to Emma…

Three months ago Shane and I said “I do!” in a city wedding in Liverpool with a natural, handmade flair. The day itself was full of smiles, laughter and love, and I’m looking forward to telling you all about it and sharing more of our photographs soon! But first, I want to share some of the personal and handmade elements we brought to our day.

Viola pops and meaningful keepsakes

It was important to us to make our wedding as personal as possible, not just in terms of reflecting who we are but letting our guests know what a significant part of the day – and our lives – they are.

Something that was quite a simple idea but very popular was the name tags I made using my granddad’s old typewriter. I was very close to my grandparents growing up and they’re sadly not with us anymore, so despite the fact it’s not in the best shape I was determined to use my granddad’s vintage Olympia and not just any old typewriter!

I bought some lovely cream luggage tags from a local craft store and typed the names directly onto them, but the black ink smudged terribly no matter what we tried. After a bit of trial and error, I found that the red typewriter ribbon smudged much less so I typed them in red ink instead!

Charlie

A DIY guide to decorating your wedding cheeses with edible flowers and petals from The Edible Flower Shop

Charlie

It’s so nice to hand the blog over to guest writers once in a while, so today we are joined by Rachael who runs The Edible Flower Shop to teach us how we can decorate cheeses with edible flowers and petals to make a unique addition to your wedding feast.

Cheese wedding cakes are increasingly popular so why not make them even more beautiful with edible flowers. I particularly love these soft goat’s cheeses above that have been decorated with edible calendula and cornflower petals – such a riot of beautiful colours! I so want to try this out this summer.

Over to Rachael…

Wedding cheeses are becoming ever more popular and are often the centrepiece at a wedding breakfast. To personalise your wedding cheese and add stunning colour and beauty, why not have a go at decorating them with your own home grown edible flowers?

Using edible flowers is a wonderful way to incorporate any colour theme from your wedding in to your food, and adds a really personal touch to your wedding breakfast. Not only that, but if you grow edible flowers for your wedding you can also use them for table decorations, button holes and to decorate cakes. The possibilities really are endless…

Base of Brie decorated with violas and goat’s cheese on top decorated with dianthus

Edible flowers can be used to decorate either hard or soft cheeses but the methods used are quite different. Popular edible flowers for decorating cheeses are nasturtiums (flowers and leaves), chive flowers, calendula, violas, pansies, dianthus, borage, primulas, rocket, mustard, radish, sunflowers and cornflower petals to name but a few.

Viola ‘Sorbet Raspberry’

Charlie

Inspiration for edible flower decorated wedding cocktails and drinks to delight your guests from Maddocks Farm Organics

Charlie

I am thoroughly enjoying sharing (and reading) all these wonderful guest blog posts from some of the great wedding businesses listed on the directory. On the blog today it’s one of my favourite subjects – edible flowers. For me there is something rather romantic about the idea of eating flowers, perhaps it’s in my DNA because as a crawling baby I was often found in the garden eating flowers.

Today’s blog post on edible flowers from Jan at Maddocks Farm Organics is much more sophisticated, sharing some great ideas for using edible flowers in your wedding cocktails and drinks. The perfect grown-up use for edible flowers for the girl who enjoyed snacking on them as a child. I’m sure I can’t be the only one who loves the idea of a scrumptious cocktail adorned with edible flowers?

Over to Jan to share her suggestions for adding edible flowers to your wedding drinks (and here’s a feature she did on edible flower wedding favours)…

Above left: A dark and stormy rum cocktail with a twist of lime and citrussy tagetes; Above right: a non-alcoholic mojito with fresh mint, a squeeze of lime and stunning mallow ‘heart’ petals

Edible flowers work brilliantly in wedding drinks irrespective of whether your wedding is a formal ‘champagne all the way’ kind of do or whether you are casually pitching a teepee in the back garden and opting for the DIY route.

Izzy

A stunning jewel toned wedding cake with edible flowers, petals and berries for a rustic autumn wedding

Izzy

Today we have a mouth-watering guest post from P-J Parker of Emily Harmston Cakes, with a gorgeous autumn inspired wedding cake that features such beautiful rich purple colours. When we first saw these cakes we fell in-love with the use of edible flowers and petals – why not take a look for yourself?

Don’t forget we have a regular feature on wedding cakes called Cake Love, so do check out the link if you are after more wedding cake inspiration.

Over to P-J to tell us more about these stunning creations…

We have just seen the end of a glorious English summer but it brings an abundance of our beautiful berries that rival any array of the fruits that are imported. The colours and choice are breath-taking; it’s almost as if all summer long the sun has become concentrated to give the sumptuous jewel colours inside our blackberries, blueberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants and damsons.

I really wanted to capture the beauty of this season. The three tiered cake I made here incorporates two white chocolate and raspberry cake tiers at the top and bottom with a double layer of blackberry and raspberry cheesecake in the middle. All topped off with fresh edible Dahlias and handcrafted blackcurrants lollipops.

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