seasonal ideas Archives - Page 2 of 6 - The Natural Wedding Company

Blog: seasonal ideas

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

An ode to snake’s head fritillary – wedding inspiration using this unusual native British spring flower

Charlie

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

Charlie

Vintage finds and seasonal spring flowers for an Easter window display from The Garden Gate Flower Company

Charlie

Happy Easter everyone! I was delighted when an email popped into my inbox earlier this week from Becca and Maz at The Garden Gate Flower Company – I’ve come down with a horrid cold this week so it was lovely when they appeared with a wonderful Easter-inspired guest post.

It’s full of beautiful inspiration for wedding styling if you love that combination of seasonal flowers and vintage finds. I’ll hand you over to The Garden Gate Flower Company to tell you about the beautiful Easter window display they created in one of their local vintage and antique shops in Cornwall. Over to Maz…

Easter is here, and we have gone all nostalgic at the Dower House in Lostwithiel. We have just been styling an Easter window in a shop that is filled with vintage lace, jelly moulds, buttons, ribbons and much more!

Becca rediscovered The Downy Duckling (or something like that, it’s a good job she’s got little kids to read it to!).

We made pretty miniature arrangements in vintage cups. Spring flowers like primroses and grape hyacinths are short stemmed so make a good addition to a tea cup.

Charlie

The perfect Easter decorated Simnel cake with crystallised edible flowers and mini chocolate eggs

Charlie

I must say I hadn’t really heard of Simnel cake until a few years ago, and I certainly haven’t ever tried one. But I do love traditions, and Simnel cake is often eaten over Easter. I particularly love the way this one, created by TNWC business Eat My Flowers, is decorated – both the colours (yellow and purple), the little pile of chocolate eggs, and those beautiful crystallised edible spring flowers.

Sarah who runs Eat My Flowers shared her recipe for this Simnel cake and I thought it would be a nice thing to share with you all. Many of us who life making things, often like making sweet treats, so I thought you wouldn’t mind a recipe. Even if you don’t fancy making a Simnel cake, you could always take inspiration from the way Eat My Flowers decorated it, and use this on an Easter cake of your choice.

According to Sarah from Eat My Flowers, “the cake is made with 11 balls of marzipan icing on top representing the 11 disciples. (Judas is not included.) Traditionally, sugar violets would also be added. Simnel cake is very easy to make and because of the extra layer of marzipan is very moist and keeps well.” Her recipe is from Mary Berry.

Charlie

A seasonal winter wedding bouquet of garden grown hellebores, succulents, ferns and magnolia buds

Charlie

Angela who runs Petal and Twig, on of our TNWC recommended florists, sent me these photos of a winter bouquet she recently designed. Made completely from garden flowers and foliage it is cleverly constructed on a handmade moss pad with a handle of dogwood.

The bouquet itself contains hellebores, succulents, variegated Euonymous, variegated Box, ferns, Skimmia (both pink and green berried varieties), Mahonia Japonica flower sprays, Spirea, Magnolia twigs and buds, and ivy. I think it’s a really unusual and beautiful example of a winter wedding bouquet that celebrates the season.

Angela also created this posy of Paperwhite Narcissi (one of my favourite winter flowers) from the Channel Islands surrounded by two types of ivy. The green ivy leaves each wrap an individual stem of narcissi to protect their delicate heads and ensure they all face ‘up’. The bouquet is finished with a piece of antique cotton lace, a brown satin ribbon, and vintage pearls.

I am so pleased to be able to share with you these lovely examples of seasonal wedding flowers. If you like these, take a look at this pretty spring bouquet of white tulips and hyacinths or these spring arrangements in vintage teacups.

Charlie

A heavenly seasonal spring wedding bouquet of white tulips and hyacinths

Charlie

Today I have some gorgeous spring arrangements from TNWC recommended florist Campbell’s Flowers based in Sheffield. Owner Tracey sent me pictures of these exquisite arrangements she’s done, all of which would be available during the spring months (just ask your wedding florist or flower grower to check specifics).

I’m not usually a fan of all white bouquets, but these are pretty stunning and have completely won me over to the idea. The bouquet above is a simple but heavenly arrangement of white tulips and white hyacinths. If you’ve ever bought or been given a pot of hyacinths you’ll know the incredible fragrance they give off, so just imagine carrying a bouquet with them in – wow!

Charlie

Seasonal spring wedding flowers inspired by a very English ‘afternoon tea in the library’

Charlie

The Natural Wedding Company is a huge supporter of seasonal British grown flowers (if you’re interested to know more check out the #britishflowers chat that’s happening on Twitter) and so I want to ramp up my support by sharing truly seasonal wedding flower inspiration with you.

I think what can be so hard some times is knowing actually what’s in season in Britain during each month of the year, and even whether it’s seasonal in the part of the country you’re getting married in – for example, the flower growers in Cornwall tend to have blooms earlier than somewhere in the north.

The lovely ladies from The Garden Gate Flower Company in Cornwall have been playing around with some seasonal spring flowers and created these beautiful arrangements that I’m delighted to share with you. The ideal inspiration for those of you planning a spring wedding!

Charlie

A pretty pink and green spring flower wreath from Fletcher and Foley

Charlie

It snowed here last night – not very much, but still a sprinkling! Despite that, this morning I wanted to share a little glimpse of spring with this pretty pink and green floral wreath from Fletcher and Foley. When I spotted it I was instantly dreaming up all kinds of wedding uses for it.

It would make a gorgeous table decoration, just as it is, sitting on a table with a pale church candle at its centre. Hung from a door it would be a beautiful way to welcome your guests to your wedding ceremony or reception venue. And a slimmer version would make a glorious flower crown for a bride or bridesmaid don’t you think?

I got in touch with Joanne from Fletcher and Foley to find out what the different flowers and foliage are that she used to create this beauty. Joanne told me, “the flowers in it are pink and white striped tulips, cerise ranunculus, ‘Amnesia’ roses, pink anemones, hyacinth pips, astrantia, waxflower buds with ming fern foliage and grape vine twine.”

If you love the current trend for flower crowns and floral hair wreaths, then do check out my flower crown Pinterest board where you’ll find a huge collection of my favourites.

Image: Fletcher and Foley

Charlie

Beautiful floral arrangements from an autumn hedgerow inspired wedding with rosehips, teasels and old man’s beard

Charlie

The lovely Alicia from Grace & Green recently got in touch with me to share photos of the autumnal wedding flowers they did for a bride who found them via The Natural Wedding Company. Getting emails like this are guaranteed to make my day, not only because there’s lots of beautiful pictures but because I was able to match up a bride with a TNWC business to make their vision come true.

Having seen the photos I really wanted to share them with you all too, so very kindly Alicia from Grace & Green is here to share some more details on the brief for this wedding along with the pictures of her creations:

“The original brief for the wedding was wildflowers, but given that the wedding was in November we knew that there wouldn’t be many ‘wildflowers’ available at that time of year. So I started thinking about what you do see in the wild in November, like old man’s beard, teasels, seedheads, rosehips and lots of other lovely berries, and suggested the idea of ‘hedgerow‘ style flowers instead.”

“The bride and groom had been to a lot of weddings already this year, and really wanted the flowers at their wedding to be a bit different. The bride’s mother, who I met with, and who organised the flowers, really loves flowers, as does the bride’s grandmother, so she really wanted to give her daughter something very special on her wedding day with the flowers.”

Charlie

Support our British flower growers this year by proudly displaying a seasonal Christmas wreath on your front door

Charlie

I am slowly beginning to admit that Christmas is on the way, what with my recent blog feature on those stunning festive dessert tables and now Christmas wreaths and workshops.

I absolutely love wreaths, I wish that we were more like the States and had wreaths for different seasons and celebrations throughout the year, and not just Christmas – anyone else up for starting this trend? Perhaps The New Wives Club could get a group of us to make a wreath for each month of 2013 and we could share our pictures? Am I getting carried away 🙂

A number of the lovely florists and flower farmers listed on the TNWC directory have started to release details of upcoming wreath workshops and how to order their Christmas wreaths online, so I thought to help you all out I’d do a feature to showcase a lot of them all in one place.

Plus, there are a couple of exclusive discounts for TNWC readers below, so don’t miss out on those!

Seasonal wedding ideas:

Spring

Summer

Autumn

Winter

DIY + Inspiration

Real Weddings

Suppliers + Products

Browse the blog:

Planning

Advertise

Get your eco wedding business listed on our directory