Hasty vintage flowers

I did some bridal bouquets and hair flowers for a vintage photoshoot at the end of last year. There was a wonderful sixties-inspired shoot, with a Twiggy-esque model, Kat O'Mahoney, and hippy-esque model (as well as teacher and blogger), Kay Joon, and a fifties-inspired shoot with a wonderfully glam actor, Elizabeth M. Quilter.

The beautiful dresses were all by Tobi Hannah, for a chapter in her book about short wedding dresses, the amazing photos were by Garazi Gardner, and the stunning hair and make up were by Becky Hunting.

The flowers were bought and arranged very hastily. I was horribly ill the day before and thought I wouldn't be able to do the flowers, but I managed to drag myself to get flowers from a local florist, wire the hair flowers on the train (one of my stupidly risky moves), and do the bouquets at the studio while the models were in hair and make up! I didn't get the exact flowers I'd planned to use because the unexpected illness meant I was not fit enough for a trip to New Covent Garden Market on the trains, but I did manage to stick to the colour palettes I wanted: white and pale pink roses with blue delphiniums for the fifties, and bright, flower power sunflowers, orange celosia and pink snapdragons for the sixties. I also used Thlaspi 'Green Bell' and garden herbs, and the acid green worked well for the sixties shoot, but I think I should have just stuck to the more muted green of mint and sage for the fifties shoot.

Wherever you're going, I'm going your way

Last autumn, I had the pleasure of doing wedding flowers for a lovely couple, Zula and Jody. They had their wedding in a barge on the River Thames, and it was my kind of wedding – a cool and intimate venue, lots of personal touches, and family and friends helping out. Jody and his friends did a great job of setting up the venue, including an inviting-looking sweetie table and a show-stopping cake table. Jody’s mother brought a lovely tea set with her for me to fill with flowers on the morning, and although it’s a bit of an adrenalin rush, as reception flowers often are, there was such a warm atmosphere and it felt like a privilege to be amongst the good-humoured family, friends and the (surprisingly calm) groom in the exciting few hours before ‘I do’.

Although I spoke to Zula on the phone and through emails to discuss the flowers she wanted, I never got to meet her. Jody and his friends told me what a lovely person she is, and that’s certainly what I thought when I corresponded with her. I was delighted when she sent me photos taken on the day, and I could finally see the beautiful bride whose flowers I had so enjoyed doing!

Here are some photos of Zula and Jody’s big day - the first five are by their photographer and the last seven were hastily taken by me! I wish the couple a long and happy wedded life together. (This post title is from the song Moon River. I had the song in my head every time I looked at photos of this wedding - I guess because it was on a river!)

Flowers; putting Prozac in the shade!

I had a birthday recently and got some lovely presents. This two-tier cake stand was a surprise from my friend in Jersey, who I’ve been out with for afternoon tea a few times. I love it! It didn’t take me long to test it out – cucumber sandwiches, mini scones, Welsh cakes, and birthday cake on the stand, and Ceylon tea in my Alice in Wonderland cup and saucer. I can’t wait to do a vintage wedding with flowers on cake stands and teapots – I know it’s a popular theme right now, but it’s so pretty and charming, who cares how many other people are doing the same theme?

Speaking of vintage weddings, here are a couple of table arrangements I did during my work experience. The background isn’t all that attractive (the floor of the warehouse), but I’m pretty pleased with the flowers.

I also got some lovely flower books and rose and ‘gardener’ hand cream for my birthday! Flower Shop Messages has some beautiful photos, and is full of messages which people have enclosed with the flowers they’ve sent. Some are touching, some are funny, and some are just curious. I particularly like this one: ‘Dear Granny, we’re glad to hear you are feeling better. Please don’t go up any more ladders.’ The friend who gave me the book is a dancer, and as we looked through it together while we waited in the queue for the Degas dancers exhibition, we were both amused by this message: ‘When we said ‘break a leg’, we didn’t really mean it!’ The title of this post is also a message from the book – I do agree that flowers are a wonderful mood-lifter.

And Mandy Kirkby's The Language of Flowers is a gorgeous book – I love the design of it as well as the fascinating text. It has entries on fifty flowers, from cherry blossom to wallflower. The entry for daisy starts off with this quote by John Clare: ‘Daisies, ye flowers of lowly birth/ Embroiderers of the carpet earth.’

Before I hid the books away on my shelf, I wanted to sit them next to flowers...seeing as they're all about flowers and they have such pretty covers. This is a little posy I made from worse-for-wear waxflowers and germini while I was clearing out my flower bucket at college.