Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Sturdy but not so you would know.


I really dislike the waste that goes into event flowers - the discarded flowers, seen for only 20 minutes - so I am always keen to transport flowers from church to reception or to refashion church flowers as bouquets to be presented later in the day. It makes financial sense too, a flower budget can be stretched that bit further and a more flowery day had overall.

I am working on flowers for a wedding at the moment where the flowers on the church windowsills will transfer to become table centres at the reception. It will work well as it is a large generous wedding and this way the windowsills can be more lavishly decorated - with 5 cube vases full of flowers put together on each- than they would be if the flowers were simply for the service.

The trick is to make the arrangements sturdy enough to survive being packed up quickly as we race from church to reception while the photographs are taken. The extra trick is making them look light and airy and not at all sturdy.

So today I have been playing around with shapes and blooms - a large part of the styling of the wedding is that everything is in clear glass vases so I won't use oasis which would be the obvious solution. I think I shall use a tape grip and a mix of poppy seedheads, thistles and drumstick alliums surrounded by a fluff of parsley flowers as in the photo above.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

It looks lovely, I know our wedding flowers were stunning as I specifically asked for things in-season. Quite how you manage all that is beyond me, it sounds so complicated getting it all ready. I think the timing would panick me, having the right flowers ready at the right time!

Hope you're having a better week after your stressful one :) Ooh, btw, any idea about what some of the flowers could be on my blog?

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful idea I never would have thought of transporting the Y of flowers is lovely and somewhat differenet.

Anonymous said...

you are clever they look lovley xx jep

AC said...

That will be absolutely gorgeous...lucky couple getting married having you do the flowers!
Alison x

Heather said...

I think there is nothing more beautiful that a gorgeous old church dressed in flowers - but I once saw flowers all over a church - just left after the wedding party had moved on - and it really did seem such a pity that they couldn't be recycled into something else

These flowers look lovely and I really like the unusual for a wedding.

I love weddings and I love flowers - you are so lucky.

Heather

Jane said...

I should point out that many churches refashion the flowers and distribute them to housebound parishoners so it is not all waste!
J
x

Gigibird said...

I love the idea of a robust flower arrangement!