British Grown Flowers : A pretty July Wedding at Houchins, Coggeshall

I can’t believe its taken me so long to share this pretty July wedding at Houchins, Coggeshall. The wedding took place July 2024 and remains my biggest yet. Over the course of a year, I worked with the bride and her mum to create a dreamy floral wedding set in the heart of the Essex countryside. Houchins, is one of my favourite venues to flower, it is gorgeous.

From memory (yikes!) I created The Bridal Bouquet and four smaller Bridesmaids Bouquets. Six (or Seven) Groom and Usher buttonholes. Two floral installations for the outside ceremony and four large floral baskets for the ceremony and wedding breakfast. Eight chair ends. 120 bud vases for the tables plus an additional 30 stems of edible flowers for the cake and a bouquet for the bouquet toss.  That’s alot, I feel emotional.

Luckily, we had the venue the day before so I was able to have a day to set up. The brief for the flowers was really simple: sweet sherbet coloured flowers. Really pretty, really romantic!

One of the biggest pleasures in growing and working with a Bride during the run up to the wedding is getting to know what she loves. I get nervous but months of planning and a final garden walk round eases those nerves. When it comes to it, I’ve learnt my best creations come when I’m relaxed and enjoying the process.

Being a natural and colourful wedding I was able to use every single stem in the cutting garden. I carefully planned a collection of flowers that could withstand the summer heat. From memory, not a hugely reliable source, it had been a cold start to the year so things were a bit behind. However, as the temperatures rose to late twenties during the week of the wedding. What was in flower ended up being a perfect meadowy mix of cut flower favourites such as scabiosa, strawflowers, daisies, snap dragons, fennel and sweet peas and most importantly could handle the heat. Again, one of the many benefits of using British grown flowers for a wedding is the mix on the day will always be completely unique.

This Houchin’s wedding has become some what of a template. During the summer of the wedding it featured heavily across the Houchin’s Instagram page . It was very good and photogenic! For brides looking for a relaxed country style wedding featuring long tables and bud vase styling. You can’t get better. I have since created another beautiful wedding for the same venue and hoping to seal the deal on a wedding for August. Once again, using meadow style bud vases.

The photo’s featured here are the ones I took as I set up. I am hoping to get the ‘official ones’ to share online soon. If you’re an upcoming couple and want to see the final shots I some to share privately. Please contact me.

If you’d like to see more of my wedding work, take a look at some of these .