Wedding Flower Inspiration:
When it comes to wedding planning you can never have enough wedding flower inspiration! Colour palettes set the tone for your wedding and are such an important aspect of your big day to get right. Like anything, trends will influence weddings and you can sometimes place weddings to certain years from their flowers! This said, I always encourage couples to go for timeless florals. I feel it is important that your wedding shouldn’t date. And in my eyes beautiful, seasonal wedding flowers will never go out of fashion! Pynes House is the perfect wedding venue to show how wedding flowers can be elegant, romantic, luxurious in a subtle neutral colour way.
How to choose a timeless wedding colour palette:
Ivory is a colour way that will never date, it is a hugely popular choice within weddings and with my couples also. Recently we have seen beautiful dusky pink and blush tones emerge alongside the blush. This adds a touch more depth to the colour palette. I want to show you that by adding in a few warmer tones to an ivory wedding the overall colour way can still remain very much neutral, timeless and utterly beautiful.
How to create a neutral wedding colour palette:
To create this warming neutral wedding colour palette, I started with a base of ivory, blush and muted nude tones. ‘Quicksand’ roses are the perfect base colour, a pale, soft, sandy colour they work in any colour way. A warming rose, it also has the benefits of opening up beautifully into such a large blooms. Scented ‘O Hara’ roses were my next choice, my ultimate favourite rose. It is so scented it transports you to a gorgeous rose garden with the smell! I used ivory flowers such as scabious, ammi, stocks and British grown blousy hydrangeas. These blooms provide the ivory tones underlying throughout. So far, a beautifully classic and elegant wedding colour palette, which has proven so popular in recent trends.
Adding depth to a neutral colour palette:
I wanted to add depth, warm and another layer to these wedding flowers. To show by adding touches of different colours to classic ivory and blush tones you can create a stunning, and slightly more different, yet still timeless feel. Foliage is key here so by using touches of the darker chocolate foliage throughout, this brings out the warmer tones of the Quicksand and cappuccino roses and adds depth. Just the odd splash of the darker foliage can really make the colours stand out! I have replicated this throughout the whole design. I also added a slight tough of pale blue throughout. I am not keen on a ‘colour theme’ for weddings and I feel that by being tonal throughout with the odd pop of slight colour this can really add a level of sophistication to your wedding flowers. The pale blue was also reflected in the linen and candles. Again, by adding these elements of colour, you are not coming out with a ‘pale blue wedding!’ the overall feel of the design just really flows.
Using British flowers in weddings:
The majority of my flowers are Dutch and I have never been ashamed to say this. The Dutch are incredible at growing flowers, this is their industry and they supply nearly all of the flowers at my market. You get a constant quality and consistency that I find so helpful in running my busy wedding florist business. However, British flowers offer a natural beauty that the Dutch cannot replicate. The twists and turns of a naturally grown bloom, the slight imperfections that make them very much perfect! The fact that British flowers have that organic, natural feel to them make them a hugely important addition to wedding flower designs. These creme brûlée phlox are stunning, the soft mocha tone of the flower emphasised by the darker plum centre are out of this world beautiful! And these sweet peas, ‘Earl Grey’ aren’t they just amazing! British flowers can add a level of movement and flow to wedding flowers that the Dutch cannot, which is why I feel a combination here works incredibly well.
Neutral colour ways through the seasons:
Each season offers a variety of flowers and foliage that work within a neutral colour way. For example in this bridal bouquet here, I added touches of honeysuckle. The mostly cream flower with the hints of warm pink at the end, tie in with the overall feel of the ivory and blush blooms. Yet the trailing foliage adds movement and texture to the bouquet and a scent that only summer in England offers! In Autumn you may want to add a touch more foliage, or focus on the copper beech that I have used in the mantel. By keeping the flowers ivory, blush and neutral mocha tones you can add in maybe elements of dried bracken or dried seed heads to offer that autumnal feel without overriding the whole timeless, neutral look. Foliage will always be your friend here! By choosing seasonal foliage and a few blooms that only your season can offer, your wedding flowers will fit in just perfectly to their environment at that time.
When planning one of the biggest days of your life, wedding flower inspiration can be so helpful! So, I hope that by bringing you this fresh new take on neutral wedding flowers this may lead to some potential new additions into your own wedding flowers! For me a timeless colour way of blush and ivory can be taken to that new level by adding elements of more unusual colours such as the soft dusky blue or darker chocolate foliage. You may have underestimated these tones before or just perhaps never even thought that these colours would work together!
Super wedding supplier credits:
Photography: Matt Willis
Venue: Pynes House
Stationery: Hunter Gatherings
Charger Plates and Candles: Jennifer Louise Weddings
Linen, Plates and Glasses: Prestige
Flowers and Styling: The Rose Shed