As those of you who follow my facebook page will know, I designed occasion flowers for a 'diamonds and denim' 40th birthday party last week, which left me with a few of the very bluest of blue Hydrangea blooms to play with.
When it comes to weddings, blue is quite often asked for by Brides to match Bridesmaids dresses, but can be a bit tricky to find. So, never being one to tolerate waste, I decided to make up a few designs which would be suitable for a Summer wedding. I say, and emphasise, Summer. As you all know, I feel really strongly about seasonal use of flowers and am becoming braver in speaking out about this difficult subject. At the moment big blowsy flowers like peonies and hydrangeas are all the rage, but they are at their best bought early to mid-Summer.
Anyway, I'm not going to dwell on this too long as I have been asked to write a couple of guest posts for a well-known and well-respected wedding blogger who has asked me to cover this, potentially controversial, topic in more detail.
On, instead, with the pretties! Here they are in all their glory, hope you like them ...
When it comes to weddings, blue is quite often asked for by Brides to match Bridesmaids dresses, but can be a bit tricky to find. So, never being one to tolerate waste, I decided to make up a few designs which would be suitable for a Summer wedding. I say, and emphasise, Summer. As you all know, I feel really strongly about seasonal use of flowers and am becoming braver in speaking out about this difficult subject. At the moment big blowsy flowers like peonies and hydrangeas are all the rage, but they are at their best bought early to mid-Summer.
Anyway, I'm not going to dwell on this too long as I have been asked to write a couple of guest posts for a well-known and well-respected wedding blogger who has asked me to cover this, potentially controversial, topic in more detail.
On, instead, with the pretties! Here they are in all their glory, hope you like them ...
A very simple, but gorgeous hydrangea bouquet - to get a really lovely round ball shape, its surprising how may Hydrangea blooms are needed!
I made a matching set of wrist corsage and buttonhole, using a very delicate lemon organza ribbon which brings out the natural colour variation in the hydrangea
A little styled shot of possible table decorations - the blue of my china teacups worked wonderfully with one of the paler blooms. Always bear in mind that of all flowers, hydrangea is one which can have enormous colour variations from bloom to bloom. A couple of these were deep saphire blue, where others had lemon yellow florets. If you're looking for perfect uniformity, you won't get it!
Somehow I felt they needed to be outside, so put them in some hanging jars. They would look gorgeous hanging from branches of a tree.
I'm currently conducting a little experiment on the longevity of hydrangea as I've been asked to use it in buttonholes for a wedding this year. I know a lot of the magazines feature it, but I have to be honest and say I'm a bit nervous about how it 'stands up' (holds water and doesn't go all droopy on you!). I'll publish the results on facebook either later today, or tomorrow.
'til then, I'd love to hear your hydrangea stories or any others regarding seasonality
Tracey x
1 comment:
Such beautiful hydrangeas! My bridesmaid bouquets were white hydrangeas, they survived the day pretty well. However, at my friends wedding the hydrangeas were split and wired. They were beautiful but they weren't happy being out of water all day and were looking pretty sorry for themselves by the end of the day. They survived the ceremony and photos though which I suppose is the main thing.
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