A purple and grey wedding

I have some pictures that I am really excited about, from the second wedding that I've been part of within the last 2 weeks. I really enjoy seeing each bride's style come to fruition and how much that style is a reflection of her personality or rather, how predictable that style choice is when you know her personality. I feel blessed that the two brides I worked with were women that I know personally and that I really respect and am so glad to know. It's amazing how comfortable it makes the process.


The other thing that I reflected on is something my brother exclaimed, he said, women must just have their own language. Getting married is just about getting married, why does it have anything to do with colours? I had to laugh, here was my rather metrosexual brother, declaiming the same thing as my retired, conservative in-laws, who wouldn't know a colour scheme if they tripped over it on their doorstep. Could it be that everyone in the world, apart from slightly obsessed brides, really don't give a damn? Maybe, after all the effort, they truly don't see any of these colours, let alone whether the colour is a deep purple or a lilac shade.


I'm being judgemental too, of course but I do feel that one of the best things of this temporal, wrong world is that there are wondrous and awesome shades of colour and that we can make an effort to encorporate or enjoy that. I kind of feel sorry for people to whom it doesn't make a difference, because they just don't care. I agreed with brother that the most important things are the solid, scary things- like vows, like committment, like joint finances, permernance, compromise, sacrifice and parenting responsibility. But it's also a celebration and the definition of how we celebrate, is what differentiates us. Now, to some people, that means sharks fin and a time to pour over multiple group photos of family and friends. To some people it means a rare ride on a white elephant. To other people it might mean confetti and floods of natural light. To others, it's moon pies and those gingham table cloths they always wanted.

I believe there is a common definition of celebration, just like there is a common concept of luxury. Where it is uncommon, is probably most representative of personality. Bouquets and flowers in certain colour schemes, is important to almost all brides, because it is a way of expressing personality in a common definition of celebration.


As the older sister and sister-in-law of very good friends, I've known T. for a long time although I got to know her better, I think, through her wedding. To me, she's always been the quintessentially older sister- responsible, competent, generous, calm and elegant. I've always admired and respected how tasteful and serioux (that's french serious with an x, because english serious with an s just isn't serious enough- if you know what I mean) she is. If there was one word to describe her, it would be classic. Her dress would be streamlined, not ruffled or big. She would like beaded appliques, just slightly 1930s vintage and luxurious, in shades of grey and bronze. There would be pairs of pageboys and flower girls and a chapel length veil. She'd have white satin peeptoe shoes and a simple but exquisite necklace of pure solid diamond. Because that's just kinda who she is.


But there were some things I didn't know about T.- for example, I knew she was very patient but I didn't know how much her nuanced sense of humour would crack me up, in ways that it wouldn't do to share right here! I knew she was private but I didn't expect how much I would enjoy her company and conversation around the kitchen table, I knew she was disciplined, but I didn't realize, probably until the big day itself, exactly how in control and cool she was (the only bride to date who's had time to sit in, drink a cuppa and supervise the individual flowers and size of her bouquet!). I feel like this is what the essence of the process, trying to synthesize a mix of things that you surmise and elements that always surprise you.


When she called me to say she wanted a fuschia, deep purple with steel grey, I was pleasantly surprised by her bold and stylish colour choice. The choice of purple flowers, which really allowed us to think about flowers in an exciting way, rather than which were available. Her brief was for five bouquets, 17 boutennieres and corsages, 2 flower girl bouquets and hair wreaths and 2 mini page-boy boutennieres .


She liked peonies, renunculus and hydrangeas, blackberries and dusty miller and didn't like gerberas or cabbage roses. The pictures she sent me were also very consistent, tight posies of petally flowers with a lot of colour and rather few leaves or greenery. The shades were either a soft pastel lilac or a deep purple and the fillers were slightly twiggy or faded.


Left entirely to my own devices, I would probably have gone very, very dark on the flowers with lots of black-purple callas and renunculus, blackberries, white berzelia baubles and cascading dusty miller or green amaranthus but that wouldn't have given the free-wheeling petally look that all her photo inspirations had. So instead, we did get the black-purple calla lillies and the rest of the selection (sans amaranthus and renunculus which weren't available) for the bridal bouquet but I also found lilac hydrageas, fuschia peonies, purple tulips and eustomias, deep purple carnations for her bouquet and the bridesmaids bouquets (I didn't know they came in deep purple!). The bouquets all had a distinct shot of fuschia, this was from the peonies, that bloomed simply huge overnight!


Amazingly, a leftover bunch of dark green ivy from E.'s wedding was still alive and well, so I used it up for the boutennieres. The groom's boutenniere was made from the same white fuschia-centered cymbidiam orchid that went into the bride's hair and the rest were made from calla lillies, eustomias and carnations. Her brother, a boy after my own brother's heart, picked for himself the two most masculine and dark-coloured calla lily boutennieres.


For the kids, we picked up a beautiful big bunch of million aster (bright purple daisy-sized flowers) and a bunch of phlox to make cute mini boutennieres for the page boys and small posies for the flower girls. We also made hair wreaths and wired white and purple sprays of flowers- I think they look pretty angelic. The arrangements were unique in two ways, the first is that the bouquets have no roses in them, which makes them look sophisticated and a little bit country. Second, this was an afternoon wedding, so we were able to do the bouquets on the morning of (I even had help from D. which made it go so much faster!). We wrapped the stems in dark crushed grey velvet as requested by the bride and lined the seams with a string of seed pearls. I couldn't resist lining the top of her bouquet with a wide, pleated Mokuba leather ribbon. The last thing we did was make cookie favours, which were stacked in glass votives and be-ribboned in the purple satin and grey suede.


Thank you for allowing me to be involved, T. you made the most beautiful, radiant bride. It was a privelege and pleasure to help with your wedding and I wish you and Z a lifetime of happiness and solidarity.

*All photos taken by Kelvin of Avenue8 Photography