Hannah & Robbie’s wedding flowers: part 2
Hannah had access to the venue the day before the wedding, so I prepped and completed all the large displays by midday on the Wednesday (the wedding was on Thursday). I left myself an hour to carefully pack up the displays ready to be transported, putting them in sturdy cardboard boxes and surrounding them with bubble wrap. Touching the petals of the flowers should be avoided (it can make them turn brown), which made placing them into the boxes really fiddly!
The remaining flowers were also transported to the barn, where we had the rest of the day to finish off the smaller vases/jam jar displays and to decorate the ceremony room ready for the next day.
We had plenty of flowers left over, enough to decorate the ceremony chairs with bunches of gypsophila and to create some simple displays for the ceremony area.
Once everything was done, we put all the table arrangements on trays labelled with the table names and left them in a cool room overnight. My back ached, my hands were sore and I was knackered, but I loved every minute – it was so satisfying to see the end result after all that planning.
After a restless night dreaming about wilting roses, I got a call from Han to say the flowers were still looking fresh and perfect. Thank god! All that was left to do was get dressed and turn up at the venue an hour early to check on the flowers and do any last-minute tweaks. The ceremony was beautiful – Han looked stunning and the flowers created a really lovely backdrop.
As the ceremony and the reception were to be held in the same room, there had to be a swift turnaround before the wedding breakfast. Once the venue staff had set up the tables, I had about 30 minutes to transport the flowers from the Pheasantry where they’d been stored overnight. My husband ferried the trays back and forth, and I styled each table. Simple tealights were placed alternately between the arrangements which really finished things off.
Hannah’s Mum made some lovely placenames using ivy leaves from her garden. She painstakingly wrote each guest’s name on the leaf using a gold pen – there were more than 100 guests, so she had her work cut out! Rob’s mum also got involved, and decorated the cake with pretty iced flowers and green satin ribbon.
Sast – those flowers really were stunning. The photos have come out beautifully. xxxxx