100% British Wedding Flowers
We’re delighted that in 2023 83% of our weddings were 100% Cumbrian flowers and hope to beat that this year!
Keen to entertain myself as I review and reflect on last year, I have calculated that in 2023 17% of our weddings included flowers that were grown by other British flower farmers. In some instances this was a majority of what we used, in late spring this was just peonies. Whatever the time of year we focus on our produce, which is what makes our styling distinctive; The unusual flowers, the grasses, foliages, twigs… we take our inspiration from our corner of England. Pictured below is a small wedding bouquet from March where we’ve done this, choosing Lincolnshire ranunculus to complement our hellebores and narcissi, with winter foliages from Cornwall that look like the greenest shoots of early spring.
We buy-in to supplement our own flowers and foliage, usually in the early and later months of the year. Doing this gives us confidence to take on weddings and orders, irrespective of the challenges of growing in the north west of England.
I source flowers from larger commercial growers and small ones like mine from Cornwall, lincolnshire, Norfolk and Yorkshire. Generally I buy directly, so for example Cornish stock from Cornwall, etc to avoid unnecessary road miles. Helen at Evolve Flowers wholesales from a 40 mile radius of her base in Lincolnshire and brings together a fantastic range. If it wasn’t for meeting Helen back in 2018 and becoming one of her first customers, I wouldn’t have been able to develop our seasonal, sustainable business selling #grownnotflown flowers.
Our business objective is to reduce our need to use these other growers as we develop our field, but that’s not a quick or easy thing to do. We lost 60new eucalyptus last year when our field got down to -17c, which we were growing as winter foliage. This photo was taken in mid-March on a snowy day. As the climate crisis changes our weather and we experience less predictable and more extreme weather, the challenge increases.
- Harriet x
