Category Archives: wedding

October 26, 2011 · 9:14 pm

Relaxed country look wedding

Generally when I take a brief for a wedding the bride and maybe her mother or chief bridesmaid and I will go over pictures, flower varieties and the colour scheme for the day.  Sometimes they take away magazines or books for inspiration and we visit the venue, and then we get a list together.   Once I know what’s wanted and everything’s confirmed I file away all the details until much much nearer to the wedding.

A couple of weeks before the event   I always get out the list of flowers and send it off to the bride for her to double check.  In the months in between there might be another buttonhole or two, or maybe gift bouquets to add, but that’ll be about it, and then off we go.

This time when I looked at the order I was looking forward to putting together the soft colours to create the bouquet.  The bride was quite clear that she didn’t want anything that was too contrived.  

I really enjoyed choosing flowers that would create the feel and go together well and once I’d chosen the right flowers the handtied bouquet almost put itself together.   The  bridesmaids’ posies incorporated the same flower choices and toned beautifully with the teal dresses.

Inside the venue the fireplaces lent themselves to decoration.   Across the top of the mantlepiece an arrangement was fixed which tied in to the one in the fireplace itself  and on the tables informal vases were put together and the table numbers sat in the vases as well.  Neat little blackboards on sticks which the bride had found and which I loved.   Must ask her where she got them from…..

The couple really did love their flowers – and I loved putting them together.  So guys, many congratulations, and thanks for asking me to put them together….I enjoyed it enormously.

Leave a comment

Filed under Flowers, Uncategorized, vintage, wedding

October 10, 2011 · 9:23 am

Autumn flowers for an autumn wedding

This time of the year is a colourful and vibrant time for flowers, berries and foliage with lots of choice for brides planning an autumn wedding.  It’s also a time when you can bring the harvest theme into your floral arrangements using vegetables like ornamental squashes as well as autumn fruits.

For your bouquet roses are available all year round but now nerines are at their peak.  They surprise me by

their beauty every year, they look so delicate.  Usually they come in shades of pink but there is a rarer red one which goes beautifully with the autumn colours.

This autumn bouquet has berries and autumn foliage with roses  and hydrangeas in faded soft colours showing its possible to have a country look at any time of year.

There’s a real opportunity to introduce some originality into your buttonholes as well now.   As well as flowers and foliage, fruit and berries can come into the design.   Here crab apples, rosehips, acorns and oak leaves make a truly seasonal design.  Or you could choose late summer

 dahlias for fun flamboyant buttonholes.
Right on trend at the moment are floral wreaths…a wreath is not just for Christmas!  And they really lend themselves to weddings at this time of year.   These beautiful circles of flowers and foliage, much of which was gathered from the gardens and hedgerows close to the venue for the reception, were used on all the tables and when the candles were lit the tables looked beautiful.

The venue itself was a tipi, warmed up for the chilly evening with a fire pit.   Inside the wooden framework offered the perfect framework for swags which were hung on the main horizontal support, and more flowers and ivy trails came down from the roof.

 And for the door of your venue….or anywhere else for that matter, a favourite decoration with me, a simple twig wreath decorated with seasonal bits and pieces….everything from horse chestnuts to seed heads.

I’m always happy to talk weddings with brides to be and their families and I make no charge for your consultation when we can talk though your ideas.

Leave a comment

Filed under Flowers, Uncategorized, wedding

October 1, 2011 · 12:08 pm

Sign of the times

The other day I mentioned our handpainted signs on Twitter and caused a bit of a flutter.   Clearly I hadn’t said enough about them

They are rather lovely when I posted this picture of a sign for the menus at  The Mustard Pot in Chapel Allerton I immediately had people asking about them.

It began with a few bits of wood and some pots of paint and me needing a sign for something.  That one turned out so well that we had a bash a making a few for sale and they looked really good.   So we went to craft markets with some for sale off the peg as well as offering signs made to order and off we went from there.

The wood is all reclaimed and the signs are individually handpainted.   The lettering is in waterproof enamel and so they can be used outside.

Here’s a whole pile of them ready to go.

Well then it turned out that they were really a great hit with brides to be.  A lasting memento of their wedding day and personal to them.  A nice sign read “Mr & Mrs …….  21st September 2010” which could be hung at the reception as people come in and then taken home and hung in the house.

They make great presents – especially if its hard to find something a little bit different for someone.   Let’s face it we all have people who are hard to buy things for which is probably why we’ve named so many sheds!  What are these chap’s getting up to in there? Can’t tell you how many we’ve done – Dave’s Den, Kev’s Shed, Mike’s Shed, etc, etc…..  But the ladies get a look in too, Bev’s Kitchen, Jenny’s house, Mum’s allotment, and I’m still waiting for one for my garden but maybe I should just nab this one which seems to be to be just right for me.

If you’d like one just get in touch – margaret@readyplanted.com or fill in my contact form and we can sort it out.   Prices are good I think when I look at others and start at about £12.50  plus postage.   Tell us what you’d like and we’ll be able to give you a price.

Meanwhile…….

Leave a comment

Filed under Craft Fairs, handpainted, signs, Uncategorized, vintage, wedding

September 11, 2011 · 9:01 pm

So many flowers

A few months ago I got a phone call asking me if I’d take part in the flower festival at Ledsham Church….oh yes no problem.  The theme’s What a Wonderful World.  OK, so my brain cranked into gear and yes I thought, a globe of flowers with a little daisy chain dancing round it in mid air to the people of the world connecting with one another.  Shouldn’t be too difficult….. Plenty of time to think about it.

However, I did know what I had to live up to.  I’d been to the flower festival last year and what lovely displays.   The ladies in the village were no amateurs for sure.So the months went by and I imagined this pole sprayed black with my globe perched on it.  So I ordered massive floral foam spheres – one to use and one to practice on and my son made me the the pole.  3 weeks before the event I soaked the globe and tried to sit it on the pole.  Ha!  the thing was so heavy it was like lifting a medicine ball and there was no way it was going to stay upright… so one clever idea down I had to revert to putting it onto a traditional pedestal…but that was OK…not quite the plan, but OK.The day arrived and just over a week ago I landed at the church clutching my pedestal and my flowers.   The place was full of chatter, flowers and buckets and there was lots of activity, and there were some amazing creations in place already.

I loved Singing in the Rain, it did just look as though the flowers were raining down the umbrella, and  the colours in Sunrise…

There really were so many and they were so lovely….but I persevered with my little globe and hoped for the best and every now and again I took a look at some of the others.   There was an afternoon tea called My Mother’s Baking, then there flowers showing the joys of family, this year’s royal wedding, sport and cricket, nature’s bounty, gardening.

There was a patriotic red white and blue one, and then there were the lovely trees, beautiful weeping birch trees, put together to form an archway into thechurch.   A lovely idea for a wedding, such an entrance for the

bride to come through….Anyway I finished my globe.  It wasn’t bad and the colours were good.  See what you think.   As usual I needed to look at it again.   I went home and when I got back on the Sunday I liked it a lot more!

One of my favourites was done for Marie Curie, lovely pink colours in the church doorway.   

1 Comment

Filed under Flowers, Uncategorized, wedding

July 18, 2011 · 1:10 pm

Wittering and Twittering

I think I am developing an unhealthy Twitter habit!  I’ve been taking part in Reach Further’s #12dot (12 Days of Twitter) and have learnt all sort of stuff, but now, whatever I do I need to tweet it…  Not sure I can write anything that’s any longer than 140 characters but let’s have a go.

Lovely wedding on Friday – very pretty bride, beaming groom and the flowers weren’t bad either.  Weather was brilliant too which is remarkable since it’s done nothing but rain since.    I know we all pray for good weather but it isn’t the best for the flowers, you get them from the market in tip top shape and then you try to keep them that way….

As usual the Mustard Pot made a lovely venue and the couple had filled the garden with fun things to do – hoopla, 10 pin bowls, and amongst other things limbo.  Didn’t hang around to see the bride do that in her frock!  And inside they’d collected dozens of pretty china cups and saucers for coffee after dinner which went perfectly with the simple jugs and jars of pretty country flowers

The theme was vintage/country, so lots of seasonal flowers, nothing too stuffy.   The pew ends were simple bunches tied with raffia which we lifted with the pedestal and moved down to the pub for the reception.   Makes sense to get double the use from your flowers where you can.

Of course there had to be roses, in the bouquet were Avalance and Akito roses with gyp, white lisianthus and freesia, and variegated pittisorpum and the bridesmaids’ posies were simple but with blues and violets to match their dresses.

And after all that loveliness I had to find a way to get 19 half barrels from Knottingley to Leeds.   Man with Van was great, but we still had to stuff 3 of them into my car, talk about the sublime to the ridiculous.  But they got there and they look good as well.  I took a photo when they arrived, oozing the smell of booze over the garden but I failed to take one when I’d done.  I suspect I’d seen too much of them by then.

Quite glad of the rain today really – at least I can’t dig anything or plant anything, hooray I get to stay inside.   A little light plant ordering is on the cards I think.  Oh careful the sun’s coming out….

and if you want to know where all the wittering and twittering is find me @MaggyAnne, see you there maybe?

Leave a comment

Filed under Flowers, Garden, Uncategorized, vintage, wedding