Tag Archives: South London

And the sun shone too – finally!

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.

A lovely, busy weekend

Well, what a great (if exhausting) weekend Stem had at The UK Wedding Show!  Once we’d negotiated the slightly mad roads around the ExCel Centre London, managing to get lost only a couple of times, we set up our stand with fabulous spring-time flowers and a collection of beautiful bouquets.

In planning the flowers we were going to use, we tried really hard to come up with a way of giving a good indication of Stem’s personality and creativity.  We hoped to create a slightly whimsical, magical display and I think it worked!

Quirky accessories, cute little brightly coloured birds, loads of seasonal foliage and branches of blossom looked absolutely gorgeous next to the fragrant narcissi and hyancinths, tulips, anemones and feverfew.  We even planted  jewel coloured primulas in teacups, milk-jugs and sugar bowls.

We had a smashing day working alongside Beauberry HouseShot by the SheriffKatie FineSLR Management and Eloise Prouse and were really frantically busy talking to lovely people on both days. Thanks to all of you who came to say hello!

Come and say hello….

Stem Flowers will be exhibiting at The UK Wedding Show at the ExCel Centre, London on 4 and 5 February.  Come and say hello to us at Stand 116 where we’re working with Beauberry House (lovely venue), Shot by the Sheriff (photography) and SLRP (PA, lighting and event production).  Our stand is called South Side, just to give a hint about where we’re all based!  South London florists on a South London stand!  I’ve got some complimentary tickets so make contact with me as soon as you can if you’d like one…..There won’t be many other florists there so I hope you’ll enjoy all the gorgeous seasonal flowers and foliage we’ll be using.

Stem’s in print again…

Take a look at the September/October issue of Wedding Flowers Magazine and you’ll see some of our gorgeous flowers.  Hooray!

As the photoshoot took place at the very beginning of the summer, I made full use of the fabulous English flowers and foliage – Sarah Bernhardt peonies and Sweet Williams from John Austins and sorbus from GB Foliage.  The rambling rose was foraged in West Norwood!

loving this dress thing

Wow!  Professional photos of my flowers are on the wonderful Love My Dress blog after a really fun photo-shoot at Beauberry House.  Wedding organiser Andri Benson brought together a group of fabulous South London women who are all in the wedding trade and we rocked the whole day.  Pretty vintage flowers, romantic dresses, amazing cakes.   And now one very proud stemgirl.

And here are some of the photos I took.  Just so you can see the difference between my efforts and what a professional can do!

perfect and pink (and white too)

 

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. 

cool and cosmopolitan

Hooray!  Have a look at Stem’s gorgeous flowers featured in the October/November issue of Cosmopolitan Bride.

Stem provided the flowers for Jude and Dave’s fabulous wedding at The Swan at the Globe in London (p.46-48).  More photos of their day will follow as soon as this very proud stemgirl gets back into the world of the organised blogger!

As I think I’ve said before, features in magazines or on other blogs and websites are the kind of publicity we just can’t buy.   I know I’m not an expert at the whole publicity thing but I am increasingly underwhelmed by the effectiveness of paid-for advertising.  That is, I don’t think it’s worth the cash.  I suspect our clients are most interested in recommendations and information about Stem from people who know what they’re talking about (i.e. other brides and grooms) rather than glossy ads that tell you nothing real about us.  That’s not a hint about recommending us, by the way.  Really not….

passionately pink

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!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a riot of colour

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