Countrywild at Blakelands Country House
Countrywild at Blakelands Country House near Bridgnorth
Jess and Simon first contacted me right before Covid hit, in the heady days of easy to plan weddings with as many guests as you wanted, dancing on the tables, no masks to cover your face and free flowing sharing platters and cocktails. Well perhaps not the dancing on the tables part, but you get my drift! Life was relaxed and fun for this carefree couple who had booked their wedding day at Blakelands Country House
Covid cancelled all the weddings
Then of course Covid. I don’t think we need to say more than that do we? Covid had a catostrophic effect on the wedding industry and the hospitality industry as a whole with some venues being forced to close and others having to scale back their teams to almost a skeleton of staff
Simon and Jess at Blakelands Country House
It wasn’t until Spring 2022 that I finally met Simon and Jess face to face at my studio in Chaddesley Corbett, Worcestershire. We chatted like old friends, which I guess had become over the months and months of email communications and chat about their wedding day.
There was a short moment when we weren’t even sure if the day would go ahead but after much deliberation the couple had decided to postpone to May 2022 in the hope that Covid would be long forgotten and life would be back to normal again. And guess what? It was pretty much.
“You really understood my vision with the flowers. My bridal bouquet was amazing and I wanted to keep it forever,
So I dried it and now I can. Thank you for being such a lovely person to work with, you made the process of planning a wedding
so much easier.”
Jess and Si Bishop
Blakelands Country House
7th May 2022
Coral Charm Peonies for a May wedding in England
From the beginning Jess had her heart set on peonies for her bouquet which meant the wedding date would need to be in May or June really. Any sooner then you run the risk of the flowers still being in bud and tricky to wake up! Any later and the prices will have sky rocketed and the peonies will be reaching the end of their season and getting larger by the day.
For anyone who is familiar with peonies will know this means that they will be ready to ping open at the first opportunity; which looks beautiful but isn’t always the ideal condition to be in a bridal bouquet. So the date was chosen for May and the peonies did indeed bloom.
A boho Countrywild bride at Blakelands Country House
So Jess and Simon did, what I always recommend bride and grooms do; and that is they chose a venue which fitted perfectly with their laid back, boho ambitions for the day. With lots of glorious old stone, rolling fields and sociable long tables for eating.
Alongside the coral charm peony bouquets we also created a huge display of table flowers using antique cut glass vases and decanters. We provided flowers for the wedding cake and course buttonhole flowers for the guys.