Sustainable Dinner in January at Cowdray House

This was an absolutely lovely event at Cowdray House on The Cowdray Estate last week.

The event was a familiarisation trip for event planners.

It was a sustainable event and therefore music to my ears of course!

We used British grown flowers of tulips, ranunculus, scented narcissi, catkins, early blossom, snowdrops, camelia and eleagnus from Cornwall, Lincolnshire and Hampshire with a few things from our own garden.

The delightful team from the family run and super sustainable Lettice Events showcased their food and hospitality and Firebird Events provided the lighting.

The photographs are by the very talented Stephanie and Nicole

British Grown Flowers by This Floral Life for Cowdray House — Sustainable Dinner at Cowdray House

Spring Dinner at Cowdray House

Well, a lot has happened since I last posted.

Who knew when I did the flowers for this showcase dinner for Event planners at Cowdray House in Midhurst, West Sussex, that we’d be in lockdown 2 weeks later. Who knew then what lockdown actually meant.

I went to this dinner and it was such a lovely evening. I’m so glad that I did as it was the last dinner that I worked on and, for those of us in the industry, one of the last times we were able to meet and who knows when we’ll have the freedom to bring so many people together again for a wonderful dinner that isn’t socially distanced or outside!

Jacaranda Catering, who are also based in Midhurst, provided the wonderful food and hospitality for the dinner and the team from Nyetimber vineyard in West Sussex treated us to a tasting of three of their award-winning English sparkling wines.

It was a fun evening and a memorable evening and I do hope that there will be many more of these for our industry in the not too distant future.

All photos are by the very lovely and very talented Nicole Haines

The Table at Cowdray House with candelabra and gorgeous sesaonal spring flowers

Espresso Martinis which I can vouch were excellent!

A Valentine's Eve Dinner at Cowdray House

Seasonal Camellia Bower

I’m often asked to provide flowers for dinners at Cowdray House and a couple of times of year these dinners are to welcome senior professional wedding and event planners.

One of these recent dinners was on Valentine’s eve and called for a very special scheme to wow the VIP’s in attendance.

We created a bower of British grown pink camellias along the 36ft of table and lined the table with seasonal spring flowers.

The dinner was amazing (I was lucky enough to attend) and the super talented team from Caper and Berry had created some incredible dishes.

The super talented Louise Adby took these gorgeous photos.

This Floral Life 2019 Weddings and Events

I decided to post this summary of a few of our weddings and events from last year for the people who don’t follow us on Instagram where we originally posted this after Christmas.

It’s always great to review the year and It’s been lovely looking back on some of the events and weddings we waved our floral wand over in 2019.

It was a fun year and it was wonderful to have created so many events without using any plastic floral foam or single use plastics. Sustainability is an overused but necessary word these days and it actually lays at the heart of our business. We’ve just come through the hottest decade on record and it’s never been more important to do everything we can to ensure that we protect the planet from further decline.

We’ve had outr electric van for 3 years now and it really helps to keep us on track on this important journey. We work locally and the majority of our work is within a very small radius of where we live.

We grow flowers using organic methods and pick foliage from our gardens and the surrounding area of woodlands and use plants where we can so that we can replant them. We de-rigg all of our own jobs and we we like our clients to take home the flowers we make so we seldom have green waste to collect from our events but when we do then we compost it ourselves and put it back into the soil.

We’re not perfect but we are committed to doing everything we can and in doing so it becomes second nature and a way of life.

Sustainable, natural floristry for events and weddings

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Flowers for a Dinner in January at Cowdray House

Happy New Year to you all!

We’ve hit the ground running this year with lots of flowers and bulb planters going out for delivery ,dinners to arrange flowers for and lot’s of wedding quotes, mood boards and plenty of exciting projects in the pipe line.

The photos are from last week’s lovely formal dinner for 16 people at Cowdray House.

White flowers look fresh in January so we chose seasonal ranunculus, paperweight narcissi, hellebores, muscari and ivy.

Sussex Life and Wreath Workshop

This lovely article appeared in the Dec Edition of Sussex life magazine.
It’s about Christmas wreaths with tips on how to make your own with foliage from your garden.

If you’d like to make your own wreath with a great selection of materials, a glass of Nyetimber and mince pies then it’s not too late to book a place on one of our wreath workshops at Cowdray Hall this year. There are still a few places left on our afternoon workshop at Cowdray Hall on Thursday 5th December. Book online at www.cowdray.co.uk

I hope you can make it and if so I look forward to meeting you.

If you can’t attend the workshop but would like to buy a wreath then please get in touch as we are taking orders for Dec through to Christmas. We no longer sell our wreaths and flowers through the Cowdray Farm shop as we operate a local, weekly delivery service by electric van from our busy flower studio in Midhurst.

Sustainable White Wedding at Cowdray House

On last day of August we arranged the flowers for this elegant white wedding for Louise and John.

St Mary’s church, Easebourne, Midhurst was the venue for the ceremony and we dressed the outside with seasonal white flowers and woodland foliage. Inside the church we dressed the windowsills with trailing ivy, candles and clouds of gypsohilla and a large urn of seasonal white flowers with woodland greenery completed the decoration. All of the flowers were arranged into water with no single use plastic floral foam used in the mechanics.

The reception was at beautiful Cowdray House where we decorated the fireplace and the tables with ivy training from candelabra and gorgeous white and neutral shades of roses, seasonal flowers and Louise’s favourite Lily of the Valley.

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British Flowers in August

Garden roses, dahlias, rudbeckia, cosmos, scabious, blackberries, grasses, seed heads…

You probably know by now that we grow our own flowers where possible but we also use other growers, farms and suppliers and this week we had a delivery from West End Flower Farm in Hampshire where they grow the kind of flowers I love; a little wayward and wild!

There’s such a huge choice of flowers available in August with garden roses are enjoying their second flush, dahlias coming thick and fast, there’s rudbeckia, cosmos, scabious blackberries, grasses, seed heads and the strongest beech, jasmine and rambling rise foliage.

I’ve used all of the above in the arrangement below in some of my favourite jewel colours of August.

Jewel coloured British flowers of August

Pink and White Summer Wedding at Cowdray House

This was a really lovely wedding at Cowdray House at the beginning of August.

It was a seasonal pink and white wedding with lots of gorgeous garden roses and hydrangeas and all made without floral foam just using simple and sustainable mechanics of chicken wire and water - yes even the fireplace flowers!

Hall flowers of seasonal hydrangea and beech

Fireplace flowers made without floral foam