Real Weddings - Joe & Rach's Beautiful Meadow

Last year I was lucky enough to be asked to design the flowers for Joe and Rach's wonderful wedding which had a lovely country fair and vintage theme. They were married at the gorgeous Botanical Gardens in Sheffield and then travelled out to Shatton Barn in Derbyshire where the beautiful surrounding meadow hosted a coconut shy, tug'o'war and welly-throwing!  The Barn itself was decorated with handmade bunting, homemade favours, cakes and summer cottage flowers.

The gorgeous Botanical Gardens, Sheffield

Rachael's  gorgeous, romantic, empire-line dress was designed by Elizabeth A Edwards, who specialises in eco-couture http://www.elizabethaedwards.com/weddings/greenweddings.html

Rach wanted a bouquet which looked as though it had been hand-picked from a meadow and loved my idea of using lots of soft foliages and grasses. I used flowers you'd expect to see in an English Country Garden in a full range of colours, which really evoked a Summer border.  The binding point was finished in natural raffia, in keeping with the theme.

The soft grasses in Rach's bouquet are really visible in this lovely shot. The fantastic photographer was Alison Fawcett  http://www.fawcett.org.uk/about.html

Rachael and Joe fell in love with the meadow, which provided the inspiration for all the flowers.

Simple, pretty hair flowers of white double lisianthus

Metres and metres of Rach's hand made bunting went into decorating the barn

Rach decorated the different sized jam jars with pretty, delicate ribbon detail and I made up little 'random' hand tied designs for each.  Getting each one completely different is more difficult than you would imagine and each design had to be cut to size to fit the jars exactly!

Tug'o'war in the stunning Derbyshire Peak District.  You can just see the tents in the background where all the brave guests, including the Bride and Groom, camped overnight!

Favours made with love, Joe's a chef so you know these would be good!  The children had sweeties instead.

Joe's buttonhole was a miniture version of Rach's bouquet.  All the other guests wore a simple single white lisianthus with eucalyptus, bound with natural raffia.  I suggested lisianthus as Rach wanted a flower which hinted of a white rose of Yorkshire, without actually using a rose!

I used peony, spray roses, three kinds of lisiathus, stallion chrysanthemum, solidago, veronica, wax flower, aster, panicum grass, bear grass and eucalyptus in the bouquets and arrangements.

Just a tiny sample of all the goodies on offer!

I have to say that Joe and Rach were the loveliest couple to work with and their meadow was a really special inspiration which I was incredibly lucky to be part of.

More of the fabulous couples I've worked with recently, on the blog soon.

Tracey x