Wedding season begins

Like most churches, we have quite a few weddings. As a flower team, we offer to decorate the church for a small fee (the bride and groom pay for the flowers) which is then ploughed back into 'flower funds' to cover the cost of dishes, oasis and sometimes flowers for normal Sunday services.

Of course we don't HAVE to do it - sometimes it's the florist providing the bouquets and buttonholes who does the decorating instead, but we enjoy having the opportunity to serve wedding couples by making the church look beautiful for their big day.

Last weekend, it was Naomi and Isaac's wedding; they wanted pale pink astilbe, cream roses (I think they were Avalanche) and coral lizianthus. We put them together with soft ruscus for height and a bolder leaf from my mum's garden for depth at the base. The lizianthus were a variety we'd not used before - the larger flowers were a deep pink, then the just-opening flowers were a pale coral colour, and the buds, cream. 

We had four matching triangular arrangements in the windows, an asymmetric triangle in the porch, and two arrangements either side of the altar cross that should've been asymmetric triangles (but turned out a little flat on the top!) 

In the altar window, framing the cross

Four windows

Porch

The real test is when the bride sees the flowers; that's when we know whether we've done what they wanted. Both Naomi and Isaac came up to have a look before we'd finished and were delighted, so we were pleased too! We try to encourage the bride at least (we find not many grooms take an interest in all things flowery!) to come up and see the flowers before the actual wedding, because on the big day itself, their minds are more focused on the fella standing at the front...and the day often passes in such a blur, the flowers can be missed.

So, one wedding down and it's all quiet now until the next in July...