Monthly Archives: September 2011


 Jenny Packham’s 2012 collection of icons in the making is nearly with us. I am sharing these previous treasures with you  – how many can you name?

















Delphine



Name the dress??













On a Friday night one would think that three bridal superstars would have something other to do than drink Champagne, eat pizza and scroll slowly through Blogs and posts commenting on and dissecting the contents thereof.

 Fact 1 – we work in shops, so like everyone else in Retail – Friday is a quiet one. Fact 2  nobody has invited us anywhere else. Fact 3 – we like Pizza.

Except we have been plotting!

I have nothing I can reveal except this is what our models look like off camera…

Joe the lovely ‘groom’ took this photo of Penny from Tigerlily’s models and the lovely Jeni from the EFC shoot – I love Jenny Packham

Drum roll, pyrotechnics, lasers, goth gas and Muse…… Ladies and Gentlemen lets give a big prog rock welcome to my new best friends…

Willow

Luna

Damask

Aspen

Foxglove

Parma

 I would like to thanks all my Twitter, Facebook and regular 3D friends for your support for my sister Lisa’s new programme Appropriate Adult.  Here is Lisa  and a few familiar faces from one of her previous programmes – See No Evil…

Lisa on the left




ME!!!





Lisa and writer of Appropriate Adult Neil McKay,



Lisa and a bloke we bumped into

Back in the summer a flame-haired, whipper-snapper of a florist turned up at Bush HQ on the night of our Boutique Launch. The flash mob technique slightly startled me – I wasn’t totally expecting her. Instantly she turned one of our 1st floor rooms into a scent packed boudoir of vibrant colour. Gayle then produced a mini top hat made of petals and colour punch bouquets poured forth. I was taken with her, smitten. A talented chancer springing beautiful surprises.

Gayle’s mini-top hat made from – um, some kind of petal! Gayle’s in Barcelona – so hang on for this…

Flowers and haberdashery – Gayle’s treasures…

Bouquet with cute thrifted brooch and lace

Hence I have asked her to share a bit of botany on an adhoc basis – today the Dahlia, tomorrow could be a triffid or a Venus Fly Trap! I’ll just see where she goes…

I have an unconditional adoration for most flowers so when asked which one I would name as my fave I become a tongue twisted, indecisive wreck of a florist! My reaction much like a mother of quintuplets would have if asked which child was her favourite……hmmm… In saying that I have softer spots for certain blooms and Dahlias are most definitely one of them. I always find myself becoming impatient for the arrival of them on the market and can’t control my girly squeal of delight and sealionesque clap of hands when I catch the first glimpses of them… perfectly formed and packing a serious punch of colour, if you’re looking for dainty and demure for your wedding flowers then these ain’t for you, but if you wish to sucker punch your wedding guest right in the mooey with intense colour and texture then read on…..

Bouquet by Bloomingayles

With their assortment of colours and petal structures I personally can’t grow bored of or see what isn’t to love with a Dahlia. Available in tones all the way from brash whore shoe reds to pastel peach shades. The only colours absent from their repertoire are the usual suspects black and blue, infact in 1826 A prize of one thousand pounds was offered to the first person to cultivate a blue dahlia, but no one has as of yet. Now the different forms you can choose from…… well you have the simple daisy-like form, the tightly revolute ‘pompom’ globes full of petals, the spiky and spidery ‘cactuses’, the ‘waterlilly’, the ‘orchid’, the ‘collarette’, formal, informal and the ‘lacinated’ with it’s curled tubed petals reminiscent of sea anemones….*swoon*

Did someone say Blue Dahlia?

Seen the length and breadth of England sitting pride of place in garden borders from July to October they hide behind their quintessentially British cottage garden facade when actually hailing from South America…..smuggled into Europe and renamed by a Swedish man..what a shocking revelation no?! Farmed centuries ago by the Aztecs like the Irish farmed potatoes Dahlias were prized not only for their beautiful bold blooms, but their tasty tubers. Although I’d not recommend eating them at home as they have been many a different cultivar since the Mesoamerican age! The tubers proved to be invaluable in the first world war due to the antibiotic compounds in the skin and high natural glucose starch within the tuber itself bringing the world it’s first insulin of sorts for diabetics called ‘Atlantic Starch’ or ‘Diabetic sugar’.

Bouquet by Bloomingayles

These clever and beautiful blooms are also considered a biological marvel…while most other flowers have two genes which affect their looks, the Dahlia has eight hence my yawn worthy list above, though not all are available on the market for us florists so do check with yours before you become too attached to an internet image when researching possible flowers for your wedding!

Blimey – we’re both Librans

Now to get all Kate Middleton on you. For those wanting to know what Dahlia’s meaning is in the language of flowers then you have a list to chose from…gratitude, dignity, instability, elegance and misrepresentation. Plus as an added bonus incase of pub quizzes the Dahlia is the flower for the star sign Libra. Which on a personal note may be why I love them so being an elegant, dignified, gratuitous, misrepresented, instable, Libran myself!

Gayle Evans

Many thanks to EFC Photography for the images from the 1st July, many thanks to Gayle for being my first contributor!

http://www.bloomingayles.co.uk/

One of the vaguely irritating aspects of being a Retail Blogger – (oooh get me!) is the slight time lag between weddings and getting my paws on the pictures! Now bless Helen  – she has been very rapid at getting her fabulous pictures to me and is a poster girl for Miss Bush if ever I saw one. BUT – and it is a big BUT  – if you want this dress you have precisely three weeks to order it. Bless Cymbeline – I love them and their quirky gallic ways but when they mean a dress is going they mean gone! Literally you are counting down the metres of dentelle until there is no more. Rien! So Elenor/Ethel – (they look exactly the same except one has a marginally larger train – never sure which way round it is) is being replaced by a new varient but in my opinion not so good.

Enjoy the pictures of Helen, a classic English rose, charming in more than one design classic!

Helen getting ready at a beautiful vintage dressing table – headdress – Eve by Polly Edwards

The dress is made from a Chantilly lace – a Cymbeline speciality

The sash has been customed made at Miss Bush and Helen’s own brooch added

I love this photo – a picture of excitement with a touch of nerves. How beautiful?

My newsest obsession – cool MOB outfits… Love Mrs H’s dress

Details, details – I’m getting better! Blue & lavender shades permeate the whole day

I really like the Chocolate Tortes balancing on vases – inspired!

Did nobody tell Helen that Bridesmaids weren’t supposed to look this good?

Best Bridesmaids back view since P-Middy – I think I spy these are Twobirds!

Can I dance in it? Yes very easily and gracefully it would appear.

The other design classic – an E-Type Jag – swoon

The new Mr & Mrs Wedgewood

A million thanks to Helen for sharing these incredible images of her wedding and her kind words…

The photographer is Toby Lockerbie who I may add has made my job really easyby making the images simple to download – many thanks Toby!

 http://www.tobylockerbie.com/ 

Ok at number 91 but it’s a start! I am officially in the Top 100 Wedding Tweeters how amazing!