Introducing Wedding TV's Bloggers - Laura Coleman

An opportunity to become a guest blogger on WeddingTV UK.  Most marvellous.  Them to me "Would you be interested in doing a regular blog feature on flowers?". Me to them "Why of course, I'd love to. Although my obsession with blooms and ribbon may become apparent."  Well, they didn't say no, but they did ask me to introduce myself first. Talking about yourself is well, awkward.  But, I've given it a go.

 

Flowers are a childhood love.  It comes from the family you see.  Mum, Nanny and Grandad, oh, and not forgetting my Aunty J are very talented gardeners.  They've got an eye for it.  They love nothing more than to be outdoors, seeing the buds come out, moving a hosta, nurturing the dahlia, splitting plants to share them with my brother and I who have only just aquired our very own gardens and sharing their passion for everything in their little bit of Blighty.  We used to walk for miles across the fields behind my Nanny's house, wild flower names are something I still adore. I'm absolutely convinced that my mother thought my first words would be 'Cow Parsley'.  They weren't, but it was nearly on the cards.

 

Since then, my love for flowers has grown and grown.  After careers in London and Manchester in marketing roles, I founded Laura Coleman Flowers Ltd in 2008 alongside my now husband, Phill.  We live in Manchester and work across the North West of England (and occassionally South of Macclesfield in London and Bristol) happily creating blooms for weddings and events, as well as sharing our passion in our 'Classes for the Florally Curious'.

 

Being a guest blogger is going to be the most marvellous fun.  My favourite bloom changes daily.  Fickle, I know, but most florists are the same.  I have a quirky obssession with ribbon (it's all in the detail, right down the fabric used to bind a bouquet you see), and I adore lots and lots of texture.  Each month, I'll look at what's in season.  Sometimes I may create a bouquet, sometimes a buttonhole, other times I may focus on what's going on the table.  Either way, it will change monthly, just like the natural seasons of flowers do.  Good idea wouldn't you say? Particularly as you will have already read that seasonal flowers will help with the pennies.

 

So, here it is.  The recipe for a seasonal bouquet....well, one that's seasonal now, but that's OK, that's what it's all about.   First of all, here's a couple of pictures I took of the bouquet.  I'm not a photographer, but I have given it a good go, even tried to be clever by displaying it in a tree.

 

 

The ingredients for today's seasonal bouquet are sunflowers, delphinium, cornflower, dahlia, craspedia, lisianthus, aster and cineria eucalyptus.  I thought about adding hydrangea but it was a step too far.  You see, the lovely thing about wedding bouquets is that it's not quite like baking a Victoria Sponge.  If you prefer to tweak the quantities of each of the ingredients, maybe take out the ones you're not keen on and add in more of the ones you like, that's fine, unlike a Victoria Sponge, when you alter the ingredients, your bouquet won't collapse in the middle an hour before the Royal Wedding is due to start and you've got three under 3's to impress.  You may gather, I'm not a great baker.  I leave that to the lovely cake people. 

 

These wonderful sunflowers are in season now.  The delightful ones you see here are British.  They were grown by a very nice lady whose father was also a grower.  Nice to know the flowers have a bit of heritage.

 

 

Delphinium are the bright blue beauties.  The individual flowers on the stems look wonderful pinned with a grip into your hair.  If your man wants an understated buttonhole, a single flower of delphinium will do nicely and the craspedia are the quirky round balls of yellow bloom that add a bit of fun to this design. 

 

 

I adore veronica.  It's one of my favourites.  It's a similar shape to flowering mint, bit bigger though, and comes in more colours.  It's advantage is that unlike the mint it means your bouquet won't end up smelling like a mojito.  

 

 

The incredibly bright pink and purple flowers are wonderful British grown Aster.   If this bouquet were a cheerleader, these flowers would be the pom poms.

 

 

Dahlias.  These are one of the flowers that my Grandfather likes to grow in his garden......he hasn't grown the ones you see here, they were grown by a rather nice chap in Cornwall.  All manner of bright colours, they really are among the best of British flowers.  

 

 

The cornflowers are simply lovely.  Their fancy name is centaurea.  I'll test you on that little factoid next time round.  I love their buds. These ones are from the UK.  A man once told me that he grows them under his runner beans.  I bet that looks wonderful.

 

 

These are British Lisianthus.  They have a rose bud sort of feel about them.  The pink ones here are ever so pretty. 

 

 

So that's the bit about the flowers. Onto the finishing detail. The binding of the stems have been brought together and tied off with a gorgeous red and white check ribbon. Like I say, I have a ribbon obsession. Somehow I feel that this bouquet needs bunting at the wedding reception. Would you agree?