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.

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.

Cowdray House Cutting Garden

We are delighted to say that we now have a cutting garden at Cowdray House.

In keeping with our company ethos we don’t use any chemicals, weed killers or sprays and all of our flowers are grown naturally. We grow through a fabulous bio-degradable matting that’s made in the UK and not made of plastic as most are.

A short 5 minute hop from our studio and Home in Midhurst, West Sussex , it’s ideally placed on the Cowdray Estate to enable us to pick flowers and arrange them in our bunches for the Cowdray Farm Shop for the same morning.

We also provide weekly flowers for Cowdray House, the Cowdray Farm Shop Cafe and the Cowdray Golf Club  where we’ll be adding some our our own flowers into the arrangements that we make.

Our weddings and events business will benefit hugely from our cutting garden and we also intend to offer some courses on sustainable flower arranging later in the year at Cowdray House. Do sign up to our newsletter if you’d like to be kept informed about dates.

Dahlia beds at our Cowdray House Cutting Garden

Dinner plate dahalias!

Fabulous burgundy dahlia

January Wedding Flowers at Cowdray House

Hellebores are simply amazing plants, surviving the British winter and continuing to flower in sub zero conditions. I’ve been selling lots of these gorgeous plants all through the winter at The Cowdray Farm Shop and I think I’ve used them in most of my winter events and weddings. 

Well, here they are again in this lovely winter wedding at Cowdray House.

We used plants on the table and cut hellebores in the bouquets tied with jasmine, paperwhite narcissi, white lilac and a sprinkling of floribundas roses.

The floral candelabra, made naturally without floral foam, lined the banqueting table. 

The fire was lit and we dressed the huge stone fireplace with ivy and candles; it was a perfect and romantic small winter wedding.

Archie’s caterers proved the wonderful food and hospitality.   

Hellebores and  ranunculus

Bridal bouquet of hellebores, white lilac, jasmine and floribundas roses

Banquet with floral candelabra of spring flowers

A Christmas Dinner at Cowdray House

This was a very special dinner at Cowdray House in December. 

It was glamorous, festive and fun and in addition to providing the flowers and dressing the Buck Hall for Christmas I actually went to the dinner. 

The food was absolutely sublime and provided by the fabulous Caper and Berry. What a great evening it was! 

Thank you to Cowdray Estate for letting me post these lovely photos of the event taken by a Chris Orange Photography. 

Winter White Wedding at Cowdray House

Amy and Andrew married at Cowdray House in Midhurst, West Sussex on November 18th 2017.

Candlelight was really important to Amy and Andrew and over 300 candles were used to create this fabulous romantic wedding.  

The ceremony took place in the cathedral like space of Buck Hall and we decorated the huge fireplace with ivy, seasonal greenery and white hydrangea heads. Candles were used on top of the fireplace, in the fireplace and lining the aisle; it looked absolutely stunning and so did the gorgeous Amy.

We stayed on site to turn the room around for the dinner with the caterers, Caper and Berry. The guests retired to the drawing room for canapés and champagne and within an hour the room was transformed with candleabra, white hydrangeas and hundreds of candles along the 108 foot of banqueting tables.

I can’t wait to see the official photos by Hajie as mine came out a little pink for some reason when it actually didn’t look pink!

Buck Hall dressed for the Wedding ceremony

Buck Hall dressed for the wedding dinner 

Macaron tower by Sylvia’s Kitchen

Autumn Dinner at Cowdray House

I really enjoyed creating the house and table flowers for this very special dinner at Cowdray House in October. It's an amazing time of year to be a florist as there is such wonderful material to work with and bringing the outside in as the days grow shorter is always appreciated by the guests.

I designed this dinner to come alive after dark when the candles were lit to create a real 'wow' factor. I used layers of candlelight that would illuminate the flowers, seedheads and grasses and although I didn't manage to photograph the table when the candles are lit I have seen photos that were taken that night; it really did look gorgeous and the feedback after the dinner was fabulous.

The Dining Room at Cowdray House

Hall Flowers at Cowdray House

The dining table flowers

Autumn Heather Wreaths

Autumn wreaths are now incredibly popular and this week we've been making lots of gorgeous autumnal heather wreaths for orders. Our red and orange wreaths decorated with seasonal foliage, rose hips, physalis and seed heads are still popular but the demand for our pink, red and chocolate wreaths, inspired by the heather woods where I live in Midhurst, West Sussex, has been very high indeed. We've also been making some beautiful dried wreaths which will last throughout the year. I love making the dried wreaths and they look beautiful propped on the mantelpiece or hanging on doors around the house.

This will be the last week for our autumn wreaths as we've been working on our Christmas collection which we'll launch at Cowdray Farm Shop on Saturday 2nd December when they're holding their Christmas tasting day. 

If you'd like to order a wreath for collection or delivery do get in touch!

Birthday Banquet at Cowdray House

I realise I've got some serious catching up to do on my blog posts to get everything up to date!  

Back in a June we worked with lovely Mauricio and his team at The Admirable Critchton on a fabulous birthday banquet for their clients who were staying at Cowdray House for the weekend.

The colour theme was rich reds and oranges with an abundance of candlelight and the tables were set in a horseshoe shape around a dance floor. 

As we left Cowdray House a team of actors were rehearsing their steps for the murder mystery game that would be unfolding throughout the evening. The stage looked set for a really fun evening and I understand that the clients had a really fabulous time.

 

Summer Polo Event at Cowdray House

Last Friday I had the pleasure of providing the flowers for a summer polo event at Cowdray House on Cowdray Estate.

Hosted by Cowdray Polo Club with catering by Caper and Berry there were canapés on the lawn followed by a dinner in the dining room of cowdray House.

I brought in some wonderful rhodendendrons from the gardens of Cowdray House and decorated the tables with seasonal peonies, aquilegia, hellebores, lilac to name a few of the ingredients. 

Its always a pleasure working at the fabulous Cowdray House! 

Brainwave Charity Clay Shoot at Cowdray House

The annual fund raising event for the Brainwave charity took place at Cowdray House last week and I provided the seasonal flowers for the delicious lunch which was provided by the wonderful Jacaranda Catering with fabulous wine provided by Nyetimber.

Spring Wedding at Cowdray House

As the preferred florist at the glorious Cowdray House in Midhurst West Sussex, we know this venue rather well and can wholeheartedly recommend you to book your wedding or event there; its a really wonderful house in an incredibly beautiful location and you won't be disappointed.

Last week we provided the flowers for Sally and Tom's fabulous wedding at Cowdray House. 

The theme was wild wood with plenty of greens and branches with new shoots emerging. We used seasonal flowers in whites, ivory and champagne with touches of blue. The flowers included anemones, frittilaria, ranunculus, jonquils, hellebores, bluebells and spirea.

We decorated the huge fireplace in Buck hall with branches of greenery, with a sprinkling of white flowers. This is where the wedding ceremony took place and the aisle was lined with candles in glass.

After the ceremony, the wedding party and guests had canapés and champagne in the gardens and other rooms of the house whilst Jacaranda Catering and our team laid out the banqueting tables for the dinner. We all achieved a very quick turnaround and the room was ready in just over an hour.

A Joyous June Wedding

Miranda and James married on June 25th 2016. The wedding ceremony was held at St Mary's church in Eastbourne on the Cowdray Estate and the reception was held at the beautiful Cowdray House in Midhurst, West Sussex.

We provided the flowers and Jacaranda catering provided the hospitality.

It was a huge pleasure to work with Miranda and her wonderful parents, Sue and Bob, 

Miranda and James have kindly allowed me to share their gorgeous wedding video with you here.

December Tablescape

Well, it's a floral time of year and the last few weeks have been incredibly busy for us at This Floral Life. 

We've been making lots of wreaths, table decorations, planters and flowers for the Cowdray Farm shop and decorating trees, houses and shops for Christmas. It's been really hard work but so lovely and beautifully festive. It's a great time of year to be a florist!

We've worked on some gorgeous events recently and this weekend we set up gorgeous Christmas tablescape for a private dinner at Cowdray House, Midhurst.

The dinner was in the fabulous Buck Hall and with the huge Christmas tree, balcony fireplace garlands that we installed last week, the room looked amazing. With the fire lit and hundreds of candles around the room, the stage was set for a magical Christmas event.

Autumn Wreath

It's been another great week for our Autumn wreaths and flowers generally.

With half term happening this week and Halloween on Monday our customers seem to be entertaining at home and decorating their doors and homes to welcome in their visitors.

The wreath below is welcoming in visitors at The Cowdray Farm Shop Cafe in Midhurst this week and it's prompted people to ask us about wreath making workshops. We'll be organising wreath making workshops in early December at Cowdray Hall in Easebourne, Midhurst, West Sussex and if you're interested in joining us then please do get in touch.

Autumn Wreath at Cowdray Cafe

An Autumn Wedding at Cowdray House

It was a glorious Autumn morning for Krisztina and Graeme's wedding at Cowdray House on 8th October 2016.  

If you look through this journal you may have seen that I was the florist for the very first wedding held at Cowdray House, at the end of June this year. Well, this wedding included the first actual civil wedding ceremony at the house.

Autumn is a great time to get married and at Cowdray House the views from the ceremony room out to the garden are spectacular with all of the colours of Autumn represented in the landscape.

The flowers also included colours from the Autumn landscape mixed with pink and peaches and the last flush of the English roses.

The ceremony room at Cowdray House

The wedding reception in Buck Hall, Cowdray House, Midhurst, West Sussex

June wedding at Cowdray House, West Sussex

It's been an extraordinarily busy Summer and I have some catching up to do on this journal. Apologies!

Now, I posted a photograph that I took of Miranda, my gorgeous bride whose reception was at Cowdray House at the end of June, but I didn't post any of my other photographs so I aim to address that in this journal entry.

It was a fabulous wedding and the Lewis family were an absolute dream to work with. It's always such a huge pleasure for me to work with such lovely people on these really important occasions in their lives. Helping to create great memories through flowers and styling, it's hard not to be swept up in the happiness wave. We became firm friends in the run up to the wedding and we've met up on several occasions since and I know we'll always stay in touch.

The Lewis's wedding was one of the first weddings that Cowdray House had hosted and Sian and Jayne, who hosted the weekend on behalf of the house, made sure it was a huge success. Jacaranda Catering provided the food and a team to run the event over the weekend, led by the amazing Minty Moore and I hear that the food was superb. If you're looking for a caterer for a wedding or an event, do get in touch with them, I often work with them on events and the clients are always really delighted with their excellent food and brilliant service.

My team were superb (Nia, Sue, Rob, Alyson and Stuart) and we had a great time making and installing the flowers. We all went on to make and install the floral decorations at another large private party the day after so it was a very busy few days, but fun too.

Here are a few of the photographs that I took on the morning of the wedding.

Happy memories. 

Entrance to Buck Hall

Entrance Hall Flowers

The Morning Room

Morning Room Flowers

Buck Hall Wedding Breakfast

Candleabra in Buck Hall

Buck Hall

Miranda leaving for the church

Beautiful Miranda

St Mary's Church, Easebourne, Midhurst, West Sussex

Milk Churns down the Aisle of St Mary's