An early-July lawn ceremony with faded pastels and sculptural meadow florals
We planned Sarah and Matt’s flowers around one fixed point: the stone urn on Pylewell’s lawn, with the sea stretching out beyond it. Rather than disguise it, we grew the ceremony flowers up and around the stonework, with aisle meadows leading towards a curved floral installation at the altar. There was never much appetite for an indoor Plan B; e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g about this wedding belonged outside, right down to the drive through the New Forest and my inevitable stops to photograph the wild ponies along the way.
The palette was soft and sun-faded – cream, peach, butter yellow, pale pink and fresh green, with specially grown ‘Thai Silk’ Californian poppies setting the tone for Sarah’s bouquet and the tables. Jasmine trailed out of the meadows and onto the guest chairs, while cosmos and malope brought lightness and movement in the summer air.
We arranged the flowers in concentrated clusters, almost as they might grow naturally, which gave the meadow style a cleaner, more sculptural edge. Later, those ceremony pieces moved into the Pavilion beneath Drapd’s swathes of fabric, joining delicate bud vases and pale candles for dinner – and Sarah and Matt’s reaction when they first walked in was PURE JOY.
