roses Archives - The Natural Wedding Company

Blog: roses

Charlie

Handmade eco paper wedding flowers from Cooper Floral Design

Charlie

If you’re considering or searching for an alternative to fresh wedding flowers, then Cooper Floral Design’s handmade eco paper wedding flowers might just be what you were looking for. We’re sharing a selection of her beautiful wedding bouquets that combine her delicate tissue paper flower creations alongside dried foliage and flowers. We’ll also be hearing more about how she creates her flowers, including dying the paper herself with natural plant dyes.

Sharon has an incredible skill for creating incredibly delicate and realistic flowers from plant dyed papers, and then arranging them into exquisite bouquets alongside dried foliage, flowers and seedheads. Hers is a small eco-friendly wedding business that I get really excited about.

Cooper Floral Design is a Recommended Supplier of The Natural Wedding Company directory. Find out more about them here.

Bespoke wedding bouquets, buttonholes and arrangements

Sharon of Cooper Floral Design handmakes all of the paper flowers used in her floral wedding creations. These are beautiful, unique paper flowers dyed in a subtle palette of natural colours (read more about this below). She has a real talent for combining her handmade paper flowers into exquisite bouquets, buttonholes and arrangements alongside dried flowers, foliage and seedheads.

Bouquets and arrangements are made to order based on your specific wishes, so time is needed to plan and create your wedding flowers. Most of the bouquets featured here on the blog range in price from about £80 to £150. They will last a long time after your wedding too, and I love the idea that you can continue to receive a lot of joy from displaying the flowers in your home long after your wedding day.

Charlie

Natural organic wedding inspiration with a romantic spring bouquet, touches of copper and vintage wedding dresses

Charlie

This spring photoshoot is full of natural organic wedding inspiration with hints of peach, pale blue and copper. The team were inspired by vintage reclamation and the organic and natural colours and textures of oxidised copper. From the exquisite handpainted botanical cakes to the vintage wedding dresses (the rose pink one!) and touches of foraged blossom, this photoshoot is brimming with inspiration.

Over to photographer Jenny Owens to tell us more…

Natural organic wedding inspiration

Samantha

Modern botanical vegan wedding inspiration at historic Arche Noah in Austria

Samantha

Today’s modern botanical vegan wedding inspiration shoot aims to illustrate that ‘having a vegan wedding does not mean a bride wearing a bag for a dress.’ According to the Vegan Society veganism has grown 350% in the last ten years. It is then great to see that industries such as the wedding industry are starting to embrace the trend which goes hand in hand with eco-friendly values.

As we very well know choosing eco-friendly doesn’t mean you need to compromise on style. The same can now be said for a vegan wedding. Hellbunt Events the team behind the concept and styling have created such a beautiful shoot with an incredible dessert table featuring edible succulents, a gorgeous bridal couple wearing fair-trade clothing and rings, and classy flower arrangements in shades of blush.

Charlie

A Day in the Life of Bride and Bloom: crafting wedding flowers from Worcestershire fields to beautiful seasonal bouquets

Charlie

I am always so delighted when our flower farmers get in touch to say they have a set of A Day in the Life photos to share with our readers. Bride and Bloom are one of our newest additions to our eco wedding directory, and whilst I do get to visit a number of our recommended suppliers, it’s always nice to find out more in these kind of features.

You can see ‘behind the scenes’ with a number of our other flower farmers by visiting our A Day in the Life archives, or for similar posts check out our Meet the Maker series. What I particularly love about today’s feature, is that fellow mum and flower farmer Hannah, had her little girl along to help her pick flowers for the wedding.

What’s also special about this feature, is that at the end of the post we’ve shared photos from the wedding that Hannah of Bride and Bloom was working on in her A Day in the Life. Over to Hannah to share her day in the life at Bride and Bloom…

Charlie

Modern vintage inspired bouquets for brides who want more than a hand-tied from Petal and Twig

Charlie

Today I have another lovely treat from one of our recommended wedding suppliers. This guest post has been put together by Angela who runs Petal and Twig, a Lancashire based floral designer with an emphasis on seasonality, locally grown flowers and ethical sourcing.

Over to Angela to tell us all about these wedding bouquets she’s created, each one inspired by a vintage bouquet…

The majority of wedding bouquets we do these days are hand-tied and I have always loved the informality of this style compared to the rather stiff, wired bouquets that dominated weddings from the 60s to the late 80s. I remember staying up late with my mum almost every Friday night in my teens, wiring flowers within an inch of their lives. Looking back, it seems utterly mad to deconstruct and then reconstruct flowers but I never questioned it at the time.

In recent years the availability of “antique” shades in roses have inspired beautifully subtle colour schemes for weddings and we have rediscovered the potential of garden plant material and more natural styles. The peach, gold and soft pinks of an antique jug are brought out in the “Faith” roses and garden plant material of this simple hand tied posy. It certainly looks very vintage, although I don’t think my grandmother would have thought much of this as a wedding bouquet – she would have put it straight in the vase.

Charlie

Get a vintage, rustic or festival look for your wedding flowers with ideas and inspiration from Fletcher & Foley

Charlie

I can hardly believe that Christmas is so near now! This year has gone by in such a whirlwind for me what with having little Tilly at the end of the summer, and I imagine all of your brides- and grooms-to-be who are getting hitched next summer will be feeling like it’s not long now once the New Year is upon us.

Today I have another lovely treat from one of our recommended wedding suppliers. This guest post has been put together by Joanne of Fletcher & Foley (a fab Manchester based florist) using the same selection of flowers and foliage, but in three quite different styles: Rustic, Vintage, and ‘Wedstival’. I love the selection of old pots Joanne’s used for the vintage styling, but I most like her use of colour for the ‘Wedstival’ theme, perfect for all of you inspired by summer festivals for your wedding day.

Over to Joanne…

Get the look

Getting the styling right for your wedding can be a daunting prospect. So much to think of. In fact writing this blog I’m a little worried myself as to where to start. Ok, let’s start with a little inspiration, and this can come from anywhere. Without rambling too much, a visit from my mother-in-law means a whole heap of glossy magazines will be left behind. A trend piece in Vogue. It screams autumn.

Using key words may help. For this little project I’m going to break it down into three wedding trends. Rustic, Vintage and Wedstival.

See what we’re doing here? Building up a picture of the overall feel for the big day by taking it slowly. Not getting bogged down in too much detail. No micro managing. Giving yourself a break so you can enjoy it.

The flowers

From a florist’s viewpoint, it doesn’t matter if you know nothing about flowers. Give us some idea of colour and seasonality or if you prefer a particular flower and let us do the work. Or even just tell us what you don’t like. That can often guide us in the right direction too.

I used the following flowers and foliage for the three wedding themes: Amaranthus, Dahlia, Free Spirit and Coffee Break Roses, Sedum, Hydrangea, Elder Berries, Nigella (Love in the Mist), Rosemary, Aster, Cornflower, Eryngium, Hawthorn, Scabious Seed Head, Mokara orchid, Rowan, and Virginia Creeper.

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

Paper flowers made from maps, sheet music and love letters

Charlie

Today I get to share these beautiful paper flower creations from Moll and Mostin – a new business I’d not come across until recently and I most certainly fell in-love at first sight. Moll and Mostin is run by the lovely Lucy, who tells me she’s had a lifelong love affair with paper, vintage “and everything I can get my hands on at antique markets!”

Starting out making greetings cards with the magazines and papers she’d collected, she soon started looking for uses for those bits that were left over. From here, Lucy began creating these beautiful vintage paper roses for hair pieces, fascinators, bouquets and buttonholes. Each one is made by hand from pretty vintage papers – Lucy can even make them with papers of your choice, with maps and sheet music current favourites.

Engaged couples have also asked Lucy to make bouquets from copies of their love letters or photos together – a wonderful way to incorporate how you met into your wedding day. Lucy says, “I love the that the bouquet will not wilt and die after one day – it’s not only a greener way of doing things, but it means you have an extra momento.” In addition to creating the paper roses, Lucy runs hen party workshops so that brides can carry a bouquet where each paper rose was made by her closest friends.

Charlie

Cake love: an English country flowers wedding cake

Charlie

For me this cake is quintessentially English country wedding all over. If I was going to have a tiered wedding cake it would look like this, simple white layers (I love the tiny dots of icing) stuffed with seasonal English flowers.

From my limited knowledge of flowers I can spot Peonies, Cow Parsley, Blue ‘Love in a Mist’, Roses, and Lady’s Mantle. I also think the addition of those tendrils of Honeysuckle really add an extra prettiness to this already beautifully decorated cake.

This gorgeous wedding cake with its English garden flowers has been decorated by Rachel from Catkin Flowers. Catkin Flowers is one of the wonderful businesses on the directory who grows their own flowers for brides looking for seasonal wedding flowers.

Charlie

A summer season of natural and vintage inspired wedding flowers

Charlie

For many of the flower businesses listed on the directory who grow their own flowers, they will have just finished up a long summer wedding season. Rachel from Catkin Flowers told me she’s been non-stop since May – phew! So it’s been nice to get a chance to catch up with her and find out what she’s been up to this summer.

Catkin Flowers are based in Lincolnshire where they grow all their own seasonal flowers and foliage in their cutting garden. Rachel has been sharing with me some of the beautiful creations she’s made for weddings this summer and I thought you’d all like to have a look at them too.

Rachel has done the flowers for a lot of vintage inspired weddings, such as this one in a Papa-Kåta tipi, and this stunning trailing bouquet…

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