Tag Archives: bright flowers

Bursting with the joy of Spring

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Annie's bouquet

So the birds were chirping, tulips were blooming and woodland bluebells were about to pop – Spring and love were in the air!  Annie and Ben’s wedding marked the beginning of this glorious season when we all throw open our windows, bask in the sunshine and start smiling again.  They wanted flowers that epitomise the zing of Spring and the uplifting sensations it brings  so it was a cacophony of different buds, blossom, fragrance, colour and where traditional wedding floristry rules were disregarded.

Dulwich College was the venue and their ceremony was in the Old Library – a delightful and romantic gem and the DC team as always were a pleasure to work with. Pink cherry blossom and yellow forsythia greeted guests and the background for Annie and Ben’s wedding vows was a mantelpiece bursting with a vibrant collection of glass vases and clusters of ranunculus, delphinium, chamomile, narcissi, snapdragon and astrantia. These were perfect for moving to the after party in the Cricket Pavilion along with masses of tea lights.

Random vases

Random vases Random vases

Annie’s favourite colour is orange and this was woven into her fabulous wedding hair.  Its boldness was tempered by a distinctly unique, feminine and unstructured soft pink bouquet of “Blush” lilac, snapdragon, astrantia and trailing heady jasmine. This was perfect for the tones of her intricate and delicate pale blue dress. An elegant wrist corsage for Catherine, posy for Leah and lilac wands for the little bridesmaids Willow and Naomi all embraced the theme of fragrance and stepped into Spring.

Annie's hair flowers

Annie's bouquet and hair

Annie's bouquetBridesmaid's posyFlower girls with lilac wands

 

The whimsical fun of the male buttonholes which were all different and colourful and enabled a bit of mixing and matching depending on the tie and suit combinations. Ben stipulated buttonholes which didn’t look like buttonholes. So that’s what he got and judging by the photo of Ben and his best man Bradley he was very chuffed.

Unwired buttonholeGroom and best manButtonhole Buttonhole

All great fun for the wedding party and for Stem too! Hurrah for Spring – for longer days, delicious blooms and beautiful trees.  And for flowers that were as creative and eclectic as you could wish for.  Thank you very much to Martin Sheen, whose photographs capture the colours and mood of the day perfectly!

Bridesmaid's posy

Lots of love and congratulations to Annie and Ben!

Gorgeous rose, ghastly name

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This mouth-watering, sorbet coloured rose makes me think of a delicious combination of lemons, peaches and watermelons.  It’s summer in a rose.  And it smells gorgeous.

Miss Piggy rose bouquet

So who on Earth was the genius who thought calling it ‘Miss Piggy’ was a good idea?  I try not to use the name when describing it to clients as it conjures up images of tantrums and flouncing!  Perhaps they’ll come up with Rosa Bridezilla next….

Stem in glorious colour

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March/April 2014 Wedding Flowers Magazine

Stemgirl is very proud to have a double page spread in the March/April issue of Wedding Flowers and Accessories Magazine.  It’s a fabulous publication that is packed full of ideas for stunning flowers as well as all sorts of fun and interesting bits and pieces to beautify your wedding with.  Grab it while you can!

stem flowers londonI really enjoyed putting together this riotous collection of flowers.  And found an excuse to go mad with my glue gun on those cool chalk-board place settings (they have a tiny peg attached to the back) and my vintagey sequinned headband.  All a bit bohemian, jewel-inspired.  I was put a little in mind of Ellen Terry or Vita Sackville-West….

And the sun shone too – finally!

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Bright wedding flowers with gerberas,tulips and lisianthus

The fabulous bright colours of Hannah and Adrian’s wedding flowers were totally in keeping with the joyous feeling of the day.  They are a really cool couple and they carried off with style the beautiful clash of dark purples, pillar-box reds and acid greens.

Gerberas, lisianthus, tulips, bright colours

Red gerberas for bridesmaids

I used a combination of gerberas, tulips, lisianthus and bupleurum  to create contemporary, summery bouquet for Hannah with red gerberas for all her bridesmaids and the buttonholes and corsages.  Adrian was happy to go for it with his buttonhole so he got the sexy dark lisianthus too.

Red gerberas, purple lisianthus, bupleurum, bright buttonhole

The reception was held at St. Dunstan’s College in South London which has a large and very grand hall.  Hannah organised the arrangements for the tables but I sorted out the quantities and purchase of flowers from New Covent Garden Market to ensure that the quality was good and costs were kept down.  There are lots of ways of keeping to a budget (something Stemgirl is a bit fanatical about) and this is a nice example of florist and client collaborating to make things work.  Here’s what Hannah has to say about Stem:

“Ruth was a joy to work with, from the first meeting when she welcomed us into her home to her smiling face as she handed over the bouquet on the wedding morning. The flowers were gorgeous, she chose perfectly for a us as we had no idea of all the varities on offer, one of the best things was during the consultation being shown in a book what flowers she was thinking of. The final result was even better than we expected and looking back at the photos they match perfectly with our bright colourful day!”  Thank you, Hannah!

And very well done to you both!

 

Hannah and Adrian happy wedding bright flowers

Thank you to Rachael Emily Photography for letting me use her fantastic, vibrant photos.  They really capture the  joyous vibe of the day.

springing into march

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Hooray for the magical, fragrant narcissi from the Isles of Scilly!  Produced  by family growers in the open air, there are a huge number of varieties, all with surprisingly different perfumes.  They’re normally available from late winter to the end of spring.  There were loads at the market this morning – despite the cold and drizzle outside, they made me feel that, finally, spring is on its way.

perfect and pink (and white too)

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I don’t think I have to say anything, really.  How absolutely perfect are these nerines?  They’re in season now and are completely magical!  The bright pink ones above were used for all the bridesmaids (and buttonholes too) and the fantastic combination of white cymbidium orchids and nerines below was for Emma’s gorgeous bridal bouquet. 

passionately pink

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Well, I think there’s no denying it.  Pink flowers are completely and utterly gorgeous.  And pink peonies and roses are just about as good as it gets.  For this summery wedding, Stem used an abundance of marshmallow pink ‘Sarah Bernhardt’ and lipstick pink ‘Dr. Fleming’ peonies throughout Beauberry House.  Then there were the armfuls of delicate pink and fragrant ‘Sweet Avalanche’ roses and romantic, lacy ammi.  Ooh, and tiny-leaved variegated ivy just to finish things off.

I love the simple groupings of flowers on the tables which were made a little more fancy with Stem’s posh silver-leaf votives!  And the newly painted pink wall in the Entrance Hall was zingingly complemented with loads of peonies, roses and acid green molucella (that’s Bells of Ireland to you and me) in a grown-up not grannyish pedestal display.  Little details, like the floating peony heads up the stairs with sparkling wire, make everything feel just a little more thought out and special.  A stunning, beautiful, romantic, sexy collection of blooms!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

spring has (nearly) sprung

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In fact, it was bucketing down with rain for alot of Easter Saturday but Stem Flowers brought the gorgeous fragrance and uplifting colour of Spring inside with (English) sun-yellow narcissi, purpley-blue hyacinths, and old-lady’s-p0wder-puff-pink lisianthus.

Vases filled with Tete-a-Tete narcissi and yellow pansies not only made a simple but beautiful mantelpiece display but also provided plantable gifts for the guests to take home. 

The White Room at Beauberry House was filled with prettiness and had the whimsical feel of Miss Marple’s local tea-room! 

  

 

 

 

a riot of colour

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Dendrobiums, delphiniums, roses and mint

“Apart from the vows, the flowers are the most important part of my day” said my bride when I first met her.  No pressure, then!  This wedding was a real challenge for me because I knew how vital it was to get things right.  Not because Emily had outrageous demands but because getting the colours and textures spot-on were fundamental to making a massive, creative impact.  Oh, and the flowers needed to be individual, distinctive and un-weddingy….

Bridesmaid's bouquet of Grand Prix and Milano roses with mint and bupleurum

Flower girl's bucket of dendrobium orchids, Grand Prix roses and bupleurum

 

 

 

 

 

I have to say that I absolutely adore the combination of flowers and foliage we decided upon.  Magenta dendrobium orchids, intensly blue ‘Volkerfrieden’ delphiniums, deep cerise ‘Milano’ and garnet red ‘Grand Prix’ roses literally popped out of lush green flowering mint and zinging green bupleurum.  And the little details of red and pink satin ribbons on the bouquets, or the red pail for the flower girl, just added to the slightly quirky impact of the flowers.  Completely gorgeous!

Colour-filled tableAn abundance of flowers for tablesAbundant table vases

Beauberry House is a very beautiful venue and a fabulous backdrop for gorgeous flowers so the absolute abundance we had really did the job of bringing colour and excitement to every room.  A wonderfully riotous and (not so) random selection of vessels and flowers adorned every availabe windowsill, table, mantelpiece and loo with everything coming together in an enormous expolsion of foliage and blooms in a contemporary Entrance Hall pedestal.  The two olive trees at the main doors didn’t get away with staying as they were – red and pink ribbons were candy-striped down the trunks and complementary kalanchoe plants were crammed around the bottom of each.  A rather exhausting day for stem flowers, I have to say, but there’s nothing so good as knowing that a venue looks fantastic and that the bride and groom love what you’ve done!

Olive tree with candy stripe ribbons with red and pink kalanchoes

flowers, camera, action!

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Beauberry House filming

I spent this morning dressing Beauberry House with flowers in preparation for a Wedding TV filming session.  Guess what – I love doing things like that!  The house is going to be featured in a guide to fabulous wedding venues.  I think there’s some kind of competitive edge to it in that one venue will ultimately be crowned as the best place to get married in any particular region.  My gorgeous ‘Ruby Red’ and ‘Tyler’ gerberas looked suitably lush in the restaurant where I had a bit of fun with funky pink wire too.  Just as I was leaving, wonderful Oleia (she who runs that place so brilliantly) told me that the BBC were also pitching up this afternoon to film a programme for BBC3!  Could stem flowers have a future on the box….?

Gerbera and wire garlandGerberas and wire close-up