Finally, after all the pictures of the preparations, I am now ready to show you the photos that I took of the finished arrangements on the morning of the wedding.
Before we start though, my first job on Saturday morning was to decorate the ivy globes at the entrance gate to the church.
To the plain globes I added small sunflowers and lots of the bright orange cosmos ‘Bright Lights’.
So, in the order that the bride would have seen the arrangements, we start with the entrance gate where she would have left the wedding car to progress on foot to the church door.
Our local church has a very long path up to the doorway!
As she rounded the corner this would have been her view of the church ( minus the orange buckets which we had yet to clear away!).
The sunflowers and grasses were ready to greet her.
Inside the porch both stone benches were covered with dahlias.
Moving along this ‘runway’ of flowers the bride would pass through the bedecked entrance door into the church.
The font marks the turning point into the aisle.
Here you can see the grasses and the seed heads of the crocosmia used in the font arrangement.
Along the aisle the pew ends were decorated with miniature hanging bottle arrangements.
This is the view looking back down the aisle from the altar.
The colours of the window arrangements worked well with the stained glass windows.
Finally as she moved up to the altar the bride would have seen the swags decorating the choir stalls and the altar arrangements.
So there you have it – the full monty of the church flowers! I have to add that I cannot take credit for the altar arrangements or choir swags, nor the brides bouquet etc – I was happy to leave the really important stuff to more experienced florists.
I am very proud of the fact that all the flowers and foliage you have seen was home grown, either in mine or other friends gardens. It made my Cutting Garden feel very worthwhile this year, knowing that so much of the produce would be used for such an important event. Also I need to say a big thank you to my team of ‘flower fairies’ (both family and friends) – without their help I could not have made anywhere near as many arrangements in the two days we had!
I have learnt a lot whilst growing and arranging for this wedding – in particular how much you need to upscale ideas in order to make any impact in the lofty surroundings of a church. Also the importance of successional sowing and regular dead heading to make sure the flowers are as fresh as possible for the big day. The quantities of foliage and grasses these arrangements took was huge and sunflowers that seemed almost too big to be used in the their growing positions were dwarfed once they entered the church. My other take from this experience was the importance of having a team of helpers for such a big event.
I hope you have enjoyed this final look at these wedding flowers and I will be back on Monday to share a vase for the house with you. In the meantime I hope you have a very happy weekend and that the weather is kind wherever you are.
