The Real Cut Flower Garden Archives - The Natural Wedding Company

Blog: The Real Cut Flower Garden

Charlie

Exclusive wedding offers to celebrate The Natural Wedding Company’s 10th Birthday

Charlie

I truly can’t believe this time has come – March 2017, the month that I get to celebrate The Natural Wedding Company’s 10th Birthday with you all. And what a way I get to celebrate, with a month jam-packed with exclusive wedding offers from our fabulous suppliers just for you.

It doesn’t feel that long ago that I was just dreaming up the idea for the directory. I had little idea then that it would turn into a business that would become my ‘full time’ job. Just five years ago I was celebrating with a lovely group of girls in a spring party at my house. I’m even still really good friends with three of those girls – how amazing is that.

Here I am another five years on, and I’m delighted to share another month full of offers and goodies for you all.

Exclusive wedding offers

We’ve put together all these exclusive offers in this one handy blog post. I suggest you grab a cup of something warm and set aside some time to digest the wonderful offers we have. There are offers covering all areas of your wedding, from wedding photography to wedding venues, wedding flowers to wedding rings. And more!

You’ll also find all these offers on our main Offers webpage, just look out for the ‘special offer’ badge marking them out. These offers are time-limited and only available to claim during March 2017.

Win your wedding photography

For your diary – tomorrow morning we’ll be launching a very special birthday competition to win your wedding photography. This is such a wonderful offer coming from fabulous photography duo Bohemian Weddings. Full details will be on the blog tomorrow, and again, the end of March will be the closing date for entries.

Giveaway to win a box of personalised biscuits

If you fancy winning a scrumptious box of personalised biscuits for a friend or loved one, keep an eye out on our Instagram account. We’ll be hosting a giveaway with our friend The Kitsch Hen to win a box of 12 biscuits for someone you love.

Onto the offers…

Charlie

What impact will the unusual weather have on your seasonal wedding flowers?

Charlie

If you are a bride-to-be visiting our blog, it is highly likely that you adore seasonal, British grown flowers, just like us. Every year the weather fluctuates, but I still feel slightly anxious by the variations in the seasons and the impact that will have on locally grown blooms.

Perhaps as a bride-to-be this is something you have concerns about, especially after this long and unseasonably warm winter, followed by the recent cold snap with hail and snow across various parts of the country. And yet as I write this, today we have eaten lunch in the garden and have hats and flip flops on it’s so warm!

“I always worry about the weather…well I’m obsessed by it, but sure enough, the flowers defy nature and arrive at just the right time” – Helen, Bouquets and Butterflies.

Dreaming of a church filled with cow parsley

Every year as we enter spring, my mother likes to reflect on the weather in relation to the cow parsley and whether it would have been out for our wedding date of 21st May (I chose May because I love the cow parsley lined lanes of my childhood home in the Cotswolds). Now let me explain, despite getting married 5 years ago, my mum still contemplates this detail every year – I can quite imagine it continuing for many years to come!

I dreamed of a cow parsley filled church in which to get married, and this is what we got (phew). However, in the run up to our wedding there were lots of nervous moments – was the cow parsley going to be out or was it going to be over? So ever since, even as early at March, my mum starts to comment on the weather and it’s impact on the cow parsley’s development in their part of the country. Luckily I don’t have to worry about the status of the cow parsley, but I know there are many of you who will have similar anxieties.

“I think that Mother Nature throws us curveballs now and again, and that it’s how we [florists] deal with what we have that sets us apart” – Sarah, Floribunda Rose.

Izzy

Holly and Laurie’s English picnic wedding in Shropshire with country garden flowers and handmade details

Izzy

English picnic wedding

I have got some truly lovely exclusive real weddings coming up for you on the blog, so I do hope you’ll check back over the coming weeks to soak up all the wonderful inspiration these brides and grooms have to share.

Today’s real wedding is beautiful. I feel like I’ve got to know bride Holly over the past year or so as she emailed me a couple of times in the lead up to her wedding – not only was she inspired by my own wedding stationery, but she also won her wedding photography via a competition that I’d promoted on the blog!

Holly and Laurie got married in Shropshire on the 15th of September 2012 with a wedding ceremony held at Ludlow Castle, and followed up by a picnic wedding reception at Henley Farmhouse on the Acton Scott Estate.

Over to Holly to tell us all about their wonderful day…

“We both just wanted a really relaxed wedding where all our guests could just have fun. We wanted a day that was personal to us – we didn’t have a huge budget so we knew from the start that we would probably be doing lots of the work ourselves – with the help of our friends and family.”

“We actually found searching for a venue one of the most stressful parts of planning, we were looking for a blank canvas without lists of suppliers we had to use and we didn’t have lots of money to spend so we struggled to find somewhere. I grew up in Shropshire and loved the idea of a Shropshire country wedding.”

Charlie

An autumn visit to The Real Cut Flower Garden and a beautiful seasonal bouquet

Charlie

I feel like I’ve known Charlie Ryrie who runs The Real Cut Flower Garden for almost as long as I’ve run The Natural Wedding Company, and that’s quite a few years now. Undoubtedly one of my favourite parts of running this business is the people I get to meet and talk to, and the friends I make – both couples planning their wedding and the lovely people behind the businesses I work with.

The best treat is getting to meet up with these wonderful people and spend a little bit of time getting to know them, and in the case of businesses, seeing behind-the-scenes and how they work. These are fabulous, real, small businesses, and it’s partly why I’ve started my new blog series A Day in the Life.

Last week I was on the road for a couple of days and it was in deepest Herefordshire that I had elevenses with the lovely Charlie Ryrie. It’s not the first time I’ve visited Charlie, the first time was back in 2010, then I went to see her about our wedding flowers, and finally I’ve been back again. We had a catch up over a cup of tea before wandering around her flower field in the drizzle.

Charlie

Announcing the winner of The Real Cut Flower Garden competition

Charlie

It’s quite exciting to be announcing the first of this month’s competition winners. This is the first time I’ve ever run competitions on the blog, so I’m really delighted with the response I’ve received.

Today I get to announce the winner of a fantastic competition from Charlie Ryrie at The Real Cut Flower Garden, which is for one lucky bride-to-be to win a beautiful bridal bouquet or a much discounted flower arranging hen party.

A huge congratulations to Louisa Maxwell, I will be in touch with you directly to let you know how you can claim your wonderful prize.

Charlie

Win a seasonal bridal bouquet or a hen party where the bride goes free from The Real Cut Flower Garden

Charlie

*This competition is now closed*

Today’s competition will give one lucky bride-to-be a choice of two fantastic prizes from The Real Cut Flower Garden. You can enter to win either:

A stunning bridal bouquet of seasonal flowers, grown by Charlie in her flower field, and handmade and arranged to your particular preferences.

Or…

A flower arranging hen party at Charlie’s flower studio in Herefordshire, where the brides goes free and up to 7 hen’s can join you with an exclusive 20% discount per person. Plus you all get to take the flowers away with you at the end of the day!

Yes you might have spotted me in the picture above – that’s because Charlie from The Real Cut Flower Garden made my bouquet for our wedding last May, so I can vouch for how beautiful her flowers from firsthand experience.

Charlie

A wildflower meadow grown especially for a wedding on an organic farm

Charlie

Can you believe it – this stunning wildflower meadow was grown especially for a wedding on this pretty organic farm? I’m a bit bowled over and hadn’t even considered that a florist might be able to grow you a wildflower meadow especially for your wedding.

I’m sure ordinary florists can’t, but this is what I think is so fantastic and special about the wonderful businesses listed on the directory. Some of them can grow you a wildflower meadow, like this one which was grown by Charlie Ryrie of The Real Cut Flower Garden for a bride who wanted colourful meadow flowers sweeping up to their reception in that stunning dome.

I’m in awe. And wishing I could get married again, to Mr Rigg of course, but just do it all over again and steal these wonderful ideas. Nothing more can be said.

Charlie

Colourful seasonal flowers for a bohemian wedding

Charlie

Following on from the recent post on creating your own floral headband – aren’t these ones stunning! The flowers at this laid-back wedding in Somerset are so fun and colourful, and what’s best is that they were grown and arranged by Charlie (of The Real Cut Flower Garden) who did our wedding flowers, and is also one of the lovely businesses listed on the directory.

I love the flower wreath around the cake, what a lovely and simple way to make your wedding cake look utterly gorgeous. Charlie’s stunning heart shaped flower garland makes a beautiful focal point for anyone planning an outdoor wedding ceremony.

You can see all the photos from this wedding here.

Charlie

Competition to win a bunch of seasonal flowers or a beautiful Camelia corsage made from fairtrade cotton

Charlie

Please note: my Reader Survey 2011 is now closed.

I’m doing a bit of a reader survey, to help shape what I do with the website and blog in the future. So if:

you’ve used The Natural Wedding Company website and directory
would be happy to spend about 10 minutes filling in a survey to share your thoughts and ideas
and would like to win one of the two lovely prizes mentioned in the heading

Here’s what to do…

Send me an email to charlie@thenaturalweddingcompany.co.uk with the subject line ‘Survey’ and I will reply with a link. I’ve thought about adding the link to the website and blog, but I’m really keen to get feedback from people who’ve used the directory, not just the blog.

The prizes

As a bit of an incentive and a ‘thank you’ I’ve decided to buy two gifts as prizes from businesses listed in the directory. I’ve picked these particular businesses to celebrate those businesses who were part of my wedding.

Someone will win a bunch of seasonal flowers from The Real Cut Flower Garden, grown by Charlie Ryrie in her flowerfield in Hereford – the same place where my wedding flowers came from.

This is an example of the sort of bunch of flowers you could win

Charlie

The Real Cut Flower Garden’s vintage wedding flowers

Charlie

I impressed even myself this morning when I spotted flowers by The Real Cut Flower Garden on a wedding blog without knowing who’d done them. The Real Cut Flower Garden is one of the businesses listed on the directory, and I’ve known Charlie Ryrie who runs it for a number of years now. She has a distinct style and provides beautiful English-grown flowers for weddings.

On scrolling through this Vintage British Wedding I saw these photos of the wedding flowers and couldn’t help but think “they must by Charlie Ryrie’s flowers!” My thoughts were confirmed at the bottom in the list of suppliers – I love all my businesses and it’s so lovely to see them and their lovely work on big wedding blogs.

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