Winter Green and White Tablescape

I thought January would be quieter with time to review and plan and update this website but its been quite the opposite with a really busy start to the year and I've got a considerable amount of catching up to do on my posts this month. I have been updating my Instagram account though, although I have let that slip in the last week!

So, what have we been up to?

With any event immediately after the Christmas break simple and mainly white schemes seem so appropriate and with heavenly hellebores in season and at the peak of perfection they make a wonderful addition to any tablescape. With new seasons ranunculus in white and green, a sprinkling of paperwhite narcissi, birch and a little pop of mimosa in bud the table was complete for this early January dinner at Cowdray House in Midhurst, West Sussex.

Clean and calming florals for January 2017 before the riot of colour starts to awaken our senses in Spring!

Happy New Floral Year 2017

Happy New Year to you!

Thank you to everyone I worked with this year, it was a really brilliant floral year and I enjoyed every minute of it.

It was a great year for my flowers and plants at The Cowdray Farm Shop and a very successful year for events and weddings too. My clients have all been, without exception, an absolute pleasure to work with.

Thank you and H appy New Year X

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.

The November Tablescape

I was invited to design the flowers for a gorgeous event last Thursday and we created a wild and autumnal tablescape inspired by the views from the dining room window of Cowdray House, who hosted the event. Caper and Berry provided the fabulous food and hospitality.

The event was a party for many of the top wedding and event planners and, having installed the flowers, I rushed home to change and actually attended the event.

It was a great night with amazing food, a superb venue and great company.

Photos by the brilliant Kerry Jordan of Boo Face Photography

Bringing the outside in; Autumn Event Dinner at Cowdray House — Bringing the outside in; Autumn Event Dinner at Cowdray House

The Abundance of Summer; Flowers and Fruit

It's been a really beautiful summer and I've been lucky enough to spend so much of it outside, arranging flowers, tending plants and watering (a lot for the potted plants that I sell at Cowdray Farm Shop) in the cool of the evening just before sunset; a magical time of day.

The summer season has been non stop this year and the event work, like the flowers, has been abundant.

For this event at Cowdray House I wanted to showcase the abundance of summer flowers and seasonal fruits and also to showcase a small selection of the huge variety of plants that I've been selling at Cowdray Farm Shop this summer; verbenas, abelias, pelargoniums, senecio, clematis, honeysuckle, crocosmia, dahlias.

A sprinkling of garden roses and a few unripe blackberries from my own woodland garden complete the look; the abundance of summer 2016.

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.

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

A Country Wedding in July

It was another beautiful July day in West Sussex when Claire and Graham's wedding took place.

We used seasonal English flowers in pink, ivory and blue to create garden inspired table wreaths with candles ; candles being an essential component at all weddings, no matter what time of year.

Claire's gorgeous bridal bouquet was filled with garden roses, cafe au lait dahlias in blush pink, jasmine trails, pink oregano and pink garden anemones.

The Jaeger LeCoultre Polo Gold Cup at Cowdray Park

I'm finally catching up on my updates after what has been an extraordinarily busy summer at This Floral Life.

Our brilliant Midhurst caterers, Jacaranda Catering, were responsible for hosting the Cowdray Polo Club members enclosure at Cowdray Park on Gold Cup day and we were delighted to be invited to decorated the stand.

We used a selection of sunflowers (gold!), delphiniums, hydrangeas and foxtail lillies for the main displays with Louis Roederer champagne inspired arrangements on the bar.

The vintage van, which belongs to Jacaranda, was filled with seasonal British plants in yellow and white and was such a huge success that we've decided to hire it out for events and weddings, filled with plants which can be either hired or bought...more on that later!

Here are a few photos of the event.

Cowdray_Park_Gold_Cup_MembersEnclosure_Flowers

LouisRoederer_Bar_Arrangements_PoloGoldCup_Cowdray

Wedding at Cowdray House - The beautiful Bride

This was such a beautiful wedding and the family were an absolute joy to work with.

Miranda and James got married on 25th June 2016 at St Mary's Church, Cowdray Park, Easebourne, Midhurst and the weekend reception and celebrations were held at the fabulous Cowdray House, Midhurst.

Miranda looked incredibly beautiful and I managed to take a few photos of her leaving Cowdray House for the Church. I'll post more shortly but here is one of my favourites...