Wedding Flower Crowns

“With grace in her heart and flowers in her hair”

— Mumford and Sons

View fullsize

Flower crowns - I love them! They are so pretty, so delicate, so individual. Don't think of them as purely for flowergirls, they look equally stunning on a bride. 

There is a real trend currently growing for the bridal crown. This has been taken from the custom of wearing them at festivals where they are worn to symbolise the carefree nature of the countryside, the music, the relaxed vibe. And why shouldn't you take this relaxed - some may say bohemian - look into your wedding.

Of course flower crowns are not a new thing. Julius Caesar rocked a pretty good laurel crown back in the day. The Chinese had their own version using orange blossom which, as it blossoms and fruits at the same time, symbolises fertility. Queen Victoria borrowed this idea and wore an orange blossom flower crown for her wedding to the hunky Prince Albert. But I guess it's the hippy 60's we most associate with the flower crown and it's from there it transferred to mainstream fashion and weddings of today. 

View fullsize

So wear your crown with pride. Whether small and dainty or bold and beautiful, you can wear flowers in your hair and celebrate being 'you'

View fullsize

rustic flower crowns

The Friday Photograph - the One of Me

“Who sees the human face correctly: the photographer, the mirror or the painter?”

— Pablo Picasso

This week's Friday Photograph has been triggered by a blogger that I follow; Me and Orla. Sara is a real whizz when it comes to anything Instagram or photography related, and when she posted a blog a couple of weeks ago about 'putting yourself in the picture' it struck a chord. 

I am always more comfortable about sharing pictures of my flowers and letting them 'sell' the story and speak for themselves. But of course there is much more to 'Church Park Flowers' than just the flowers and I must show my face occasionally to show that, obviously, there are people behind the scenes squirrelling away - planting, weeding, watering, picking, creating and delivering. So....... Here I am! 

'Modelling' a bouquet and flower crown that I made for a recent wedding fayre, you can just about make me out. The flowers still take centre stage, but firstly I am more comfortable with that and actually they should be the focus!

Blogs, Blogging, Bloggers?

Of course I knew about these things, maybe had actually read a few in my (free?) time but actually never really understood what they were about. So when Loveland Farm in Hartland approached me to run a workshop for a group of 24 ‘professional bloggers’ you can imagine my trepidation. It was to be known as ‘Sisterhood Camp’

I ‘stalked’ these people via social media and found a group of confident, knowledgeable, articulate and strong women that were coming from all over the country to stay at Lovelands in order to promote their message and they wanted little old me to show them how to make a flower crown? Yikes!!

So I arm myself with buckets and buckets of foliage, florist tape, wire and ribbon and turn up at the spectacular Lovelands with their crazy glamping pods.

Wow! The location is awesome, the pods are out of this world and ‘Sisterhood’? They really were the most inspiring, uplifting and beautiful group of ladies. I wanted to stay all day, I wanted to stay all evening, dam it, I want to be one of the ‘Sisterhood’ gang. I just need to learn how to blog. I showed them how to create foliage crowns and in return I picked up snippets about the blogging world. So truly fascinating – who knew that this form of communication could be so powerful, far reaching and motivating. From subsequent 'stalking' I can see how they each share in their own way their own loves, passions and experiences – how they want to tell everyone all about it and how they want to include everyone and encourage everyone to join in.

True to their word the message of Church Park Flowers has now been spread amongst their thousands of followers through some amazing ‘blogs’. I know I’ve not stumbled across them all but when you have a few minutes please take a look at those I have discovered:

Little Green Shed 

Lobster and Swan  

Decorators Notebook 

So it may seem a bit ‘geeky’ or ‘nerdy’ to be a blogger – but really the Sisterhood are a normal group of friends who have the gift of sharing and the skill of writing. Now, where is that thesaurus, oh and some spare time……