Wedding planning is stressful at the best of times. Trying to plan a wedding during Covid when you are both working in the NHS and you don’t even know if you will be allowed your tipi wedding takes it to a whole other level. Yet at every step along the way, they had a smile and a laugh and always made sure they kept in touch on their plans.
This is the romantic story of M and A, how they brought their two families together with their marriage and how they have continued that by creating a new home and a family business.
Read on for my top three memories of their day and all about the flowers.
Family
I arrived at the hotel where M and A were getting ready, and in both of their rooms was a crowd of people. All family, I lost track of who was who but it was all their children, children’s partners and even their grandchildren. Everyone was included and made to feel part of the day. The flower girl was their grandchild, the best man and bridesmaids were all family. On this day they celebrated their own love (which was so clear to see) as well as their love for their family.
After their wedding M and A kept in touch. Then they asked me to work with them on their grand opening. Opening of what, said I! Their wedding (and the relentlessness of covid in the NHS) had been a turning point. They wanted to spend more time together as a family so changed their lives completely by opening a pub. If you are near Boston, I recommend popping to the Ball House. Renovated and open in just a few short weeks with A cooking, family behind the bar and M running round doing everything else. Oh and just for the grand opening there was a statement floral mantlepiece!
What I didn’t appreciate about their day until I saw the gorgeous photos from TTS Media was how overwhelming it was for them. It really meant everything to them and seeing how emotional M was makes me reach for a tissue.
Trust
This seems to be a theme that runs through my favourite weddings. The ones where the couple say ‘we trust you to make it beautiful’ we don’t need to know the details of every flower. This was M and A, they loved the more relaxed and romantic style of my flowers and gave me a colour palette to work from.
Even just the other day M messaged me to say I ‘still can’t believe how you got my vision out of my head and made it real. Never cried so much over flowers’.
This makes it for me. To know that I made them feel special on their day.
Traily bits
This might sound a bit odd but it is one of those defining memories that makes me smile. In every conversation we had about the flowers, there would always be a point when A said the floral urns should have traily bits. Even when he was not in the conversation he would have told M to make sure she mentioned the traily bits.
Fortunately for them I knew a grower that had just the thing in abundance. More on that below.
On their day it had rained and it had rained for days beforehand. Their outdoor ceremony by the lake was turned into a tipi wedding and no one was more glad than me. I had visions of their urns of flowers sinking into the mud and toppling over.
Instead, the urns (with their traily bits) framed their wedding ceremony in the tipi and later their sweetheart top table was moved in front of them for the reception. Even A said that he didn’t appreciate how much the flowers can change the setting of the venue until he saw it happen.
This is something every florist knows but is so difficult to describe.
All about the flowers
This gorgeous wedding was in July so a perfect time for locally grown flowers. The only problem was that everyone was getting married (after a year without weddings) so demand far outstripped supply for locally grown.
In the end around two thirds of the flowers and foliage were locally grown in Lincolnshire. This would not have been possible without my network of growers. What one grower had sold out of another had. This did present a logistical nightmare for me but also made me reach out to new growers I hadn’t worked with before. Those growers are now friends and regular suppliers.
That perfect rose at the front of the bridal bouquet – it was grown a mile from my workshop. The sweet peas that do that beautiful thing out the side of the bouquet – grown 15 minutes from my workshop. All the amazing traily bits for those floral urns were grown in the same place as the sweet peas.
All these amazing curved stems and traily bits are things that commercial wholesalers cannot supply because each stem is different and unique. This is part of the difference that buying local can make. Your wedding flowers will be truly unique and of the season. The other benefit is obviously the environmental impact – it is much lower with locally grown flowers. The small amount of research out there suggests the carbon footprint could be one tenth that of imported flowers.
The arrangements M and A chose included: bridal bouquet, bridesmaid bouquets, buttonholes, flower girl basket with fresh petals, large floral urns and thank you bouquets to give as gifts.
Flowers included were: roses, scabious, larkspur, sweet peas, corncockle, dahlias, echinops, gooseneck, gladioli, ammi, phlox, snapdragons, gypsophila, beech foliage, eucalyptus and lots and lots of traily jasmine.
Thank you M and A for being the genuine and lovely people you are x
All wedding photos courtesy of and copyright of the very talented https://ttsmedia.org/
- Photographer: @tts_media
- Venue: @thetipitribe at @hackthorn.estate
- Florist: @limewoodflowers
- Styling: @rubyandcoevents
- Food: @goodgrubco
- Botanically dyed velvet silk ribbon: @bertieandfred
