The Garden Gate Flower Company Archives - The Natural Wedding Company

Blog: The Garden Gate Flower Company

Samantha

Ellie and Dean’s colourful Cornish wedding with stunning seasonal flowers and a garden party in a grand pavilion tent

Samantha

Colourful Cornish wedding

There are so many gorgeous details to love about today’s wedding I wouldn’tknow where to start, and a bride that says she wished to look like a woodland fairy queen on her big day is a bride after my own heart!

Ellie and Dean’s relaxed, Cornish wedding features an abundance of colourful accents including a vintage peacock print shawl, emerald shoes and swoon-worthy blooms. Then there’s a beautiful old, flower filled church and a garden party in a spectacular tent, with shared roast lamb platters to bring guests together.

To top it all off the portraits of the new Mr and Mrs look like they are straight out of a fairy tale! All captured exquisitely on film by fine art film photographers Taylor & Porter, who you can find listed in the directory as one of our recommended wedding suppliers, and in the words of bride Ellie “are absolutely fantastic.”

So on that note lets delve in, with bride Ellie providing more information about their big day …

Charlie

Behind-the-scenes film with The Garden Gate Flower Company for a sea-meets-land wedding of seasonal British blooms

Charlie

Today I’ve got a pretty special blog post for you and something a little different. The lovely Becca and Maz from The Garden Gate Flower Company have had a short film made telling the story of one couples wedding flowers, from picking seasonal blooms in their Cornish cutting patch, to setting up the venue and delivering the brides bouquet (such a gorgeous moment!).

This beautiful film provides couples with a special insight into how one homegrown flower business creates stunning seasonal blooms for a wedding. So take a peep behind the scenes with The Garden Gate Flower Company and don’t miss that magical moment when Becca delivers the bride her bouquet – so sweet.

Also keep a look out for my other favourite moment of the film – their use of tomato cuttings for the table centrepieces!

http://vimeo.com/76329323

Now over to Maz from The Garden Gate Flower Company to tell you a little bit more about the wedding and the film…

Our friend, Emma Griffin is a super creative photographer, artist and more recently film maker, based in Cornwall. Together we had the idea to make a short film which told the story of Katie and Damian’s flowers from picking to setting up the venue and delivering Katie her bouquet.

Charlie

Behind-the-scenes at our seasonal wedding hair flowers shoot with The Garden Gate Flower Company

Charlie

Last week I shared all the gorgeous photos from my seasonal wedding hair flowers mini shoot with The Garden Gate Flower Company – if you haven’t seen them already and are dreaming of wearing flowers in your hair at your wedding, click here right now for a heady dose of floral inspiration.

As much as I love sharing all the pretty pictures to inspire you for your weddings, I also like to show the real ‘behind-the-scenes’ stuff that goes into a wedding shoot and the small businesses that put in all the hard work. Today I’ve got all the behind-the-scenes photos from my day at The Garden Gate Flower Company, beautifully captured on film by Taylor & Porter Photographs.

I’m going to hand you over to Maz from The Garden Gate Flower Company who will tell you their experience of the day…

“A misty, typically Cornish day back in June was positively brightened by Charlie from The Natural Wedding Company who stopped off on her TNWC South West Roadtrip. We had a little workshop of our own and focused on hair. Charlie has totally sparked a new interest in native grasses (or … errm, weeds to us gardeners: until now? I am totally embracing the ‘can’t beat them join them’ aspect of this idea!).”

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

TNWC South West Roadtrip Day 4: The Garden Gate Flower Company with Taylor & Porter Photographs

Charlie

What a lovely day I had yesterday, despite the most miserable drizzly weather in Cornwall. I spent the whole day at The Garden Gate Flower Company (who are based just outside Fowey) with Becca and Maz, generally having a lot of fun with their beautiful flowers.

Our plan was to spend the day creating beautiful wedding hair flowers with the aim to inspire brides-to-be who want to wear flowers in their hair, but don’t feel the big, bold, statement flower crowns are ‘them’.

In the afternoon we were joined by Louise and Teo from Taylor & Porter Photographs, the loveliest couple who’ve recently relocated to Cornwall, and take all their pictures on vintage film cameras – you should definitely check out their work if you want something a bit different for your wedding photography.

Today you get my photos, but soon I’ll be featuring all Louise and Teo’s photos. Can’t wait!

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

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

Treat your mum this Mother’s Day with special offers on seasonal floral courses from The Garden Gate Flower Company

Charlie

It is an exciting time in the world of British cut flowers, so many small growers are coming together to promote seasonal, English blooms and I am delighted to be doing my bit through promoting them for weddings. If you haven’t considered sourcing British grown, in season flowers for your wedding, you must check out the Flowers section on the directory – I promise you won’t be disappointed.

One of our lovely recommended flower farmers – The Garden Gate Flower Company – are offering an exclusive 10% discount to TNWC readers on two of their upcoming floral courses. Having been on a couple of flower arranging courses, and those specifically offered by flower growers, I can highly recommend them as being a lot of fun and full of top tips.

The Garden Gate Flower Company are based in Cornwall on their family-run farm where they grow organically. The 10% discount applies to the following two courses:

A Mother’s Day Workshop – Saturday 9th March 10am – 12.30pm

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!

Charlie

My autumnal styled stall at the Eco Wedding Fair with seasonal flowers and ideas for wedding table centrepieces

Charlie

On Saturday I shared Jennie Hill’s lovely photos from the Eco Wedding Fair (you can see it all here), and today I’ve got my pictures of my stall and a few more details about how I decorated it. Perhaps you’ll find some inspiration for your wedding or just an autumn or winter celebration you might be planning.

We arrived at Riverstation in Bristol at about 9am and first we had to: unpack a number of boxes of what at first glance probably looked like a pile of junk, carry two heavy buckets of sand up a flight of stairs, and manoeuvre a bundle of 7ft long bamboo canes. I was so pleased that the other exhibitors had equally quirky bootfuls for their stalls!

My mom and I had two hours to set up before visitors started arriving, so here’s what I did with the mottley collection of items. I used a pair of curtains to cover my table – they are a rather fun botanical print style curtain with what looks like horse chestnut leaves on them, and they ended up working in perfectly with that autumn feel I was going for.

The two metal buckets of sand went either side of the table and they held some of my bamboo canes – apologies this is the best picture I have which shows the bamboo canes and bunting…

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