Floral essay #26

Peonies and daisies.

The second I’ve finished setting up a wedding I immediately head to Instagram. I will obsessively check the wedding photographer’s feed for the rest of the day. I’m just desperate for the sneak peak.

Sometimes they post on the same day. Sometimes it’ll take a couple of days. I’m really not a patient person. I just hate waiting.

For E & C I was just as impatient. It had been an incredibly laid back wedding. A lovely harpist had played whilst I was setting up. The groom waltzed in mid morning and his groomsmen seemed more nervous than him. We took our time getting all the buttonholes pinned in place.

The bride arrived with little fanfare. I even got a chance for a wee chat when I went to show her her bouquet. From a supplier point of view they’re the ideal couple. It was so relaxed and I could just tell they would both thoroughly enjoy their day. They were doing a private ceremony just the two of them, before the ceremony in front of their friends and family. It felt like such an intimate, thoughtful wedding.

E had said she loved daisies, so I just had to buy in tiny tanacetum (also known as feverfew) and leucanthemum (the big white daisy-like flowers). But it’s also peony season and I can never pass an opportunity to buy in peonies. The selection was impressive but the ones I chose ‘Moonrise Yellow’ look like giant daisies when they bloom, so it had to be them.

These gorgeous photos were captured by Fawn and Bell Photography. It took her two days to post a sneak peak on her IG and it was worth the wait.

Flowers used:

• Paeonia ‘Moonrise Yellow’

• Delphinium ‘Ballkleid’

• Ranunculus Success ‘Tuareg’

• Nigella ‘Bucharica Blue Star’

• Nigella ‘White Lady’

• Dianthus Barb. ‘Pink Magic’

• Garden Rose ‘Kensington Gardens!’

• Spray Rose ‘One Top’

• Spray Rose ‘Trinity’

• Leucanthemum ‘Meikoningin’

• Tanacetum ‘Camille’

• Trollius ‘Yellow’

• Foliages: Pittosporum, Thlaspi, Silver Birch.

I love hearing what flowers people would choose if they were getting married or celebrating something big. Let me know what you’d pick.

It’s a short and very sweet floral essay this week. I thought about waiting until I had the full wedding photo gallery, but like I said, I’m impatient.

With love and peonies,

P.S. Listen to me and Keeley Rees chat on her gorgeous podcast Creative Courage. It was a joyous chat, recorded just days before we found the tumour in Abbey, my beloved greyhound. Keeley is a fellow sighthound owner and so there is some skinny dog chat during the episode. It just feels like the most glorious way to memorialise Abbey.

You can find my episode ‘Making a joyful & beauty-filled life (even if you're a bit of a scaredy-cat) with Sarah Rushbrooke’ on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and lots of other places.