INSPIRATION

Taking inspiration from the beautiful green grounds and fairways of The Warren Estate Golf Course, I wanted to show a new way to use greenery in wedding styling and venue decoration for The Rose Barn Open Day (June 2019). I put together a Pinterest board of inspiration including lush greenery, foliage, ferns and botanicals.

The Rose Barn has recently had, and continues to have some amazing refurbishment. It is the kind of venue that is full of character, warmth and has been finished to a high standard. I'm particularly taken with the barn conversion. It has large full length windows with black frames filling the space with light, an amazing oak staircase, flooring and exposed brickwork and a contemporary light installation. The venue attracts couples who want a versatile, exclusive use event space in a beautiful surroundings, with on site accommodation.

I have been involved with several open days at The Rose Barn over the last year and each time I like to show couples different ideas and inspiration focusing on ways to decorate and style the event space. Working in the newest part of the converted barn, I wanted to showcase how decor could be added to the space to enhance the design features including the metal light fixtures, grand oak staircase and oak dressers.

RECOMMENDED SUPPLIERS

For this particular Open Day Showcase, I worked with fellow recommended suppliers Victoria from Pinkface Cakes and Louise from The Botanical Shed. We work well as a styling team, our tastes are similar, we are all creative and love collaborating to create a decor experience. We met back in November 2017 when we worked on a styled shoot together (click to view the feature on One Fab Day) and love the opportunity to work together on elegant, contemporary and creative weddings for stylish couples.

THE STYLING

At the entrance to the space we added a beautiful vintage bike hired from The Botanical Shed and one of our order of the day chalkboard easels. We weren't going for a vintage look, as The Rose Barn is an eclectic mix of new and old, so we accessorised both props with a contemporary arrangement of lush greenery and ferns in a loose and wild ethereal style.

Moving on to the landing, there is a blank space which was the perfect location for a cake table set up. I chose to feature the cake on our console table with hairpin legs. The console top is made from a vintage double school desk and the contrasting black hairpins give it a modern yet slightly retro feel. On top of the console stood an immaculately iced tiered white wedding cake by Victoria from Pinkface with delicate ferns embellishment, surrounded by our 90cm twin cake hoop. For drama I asked Louise, The Botanical Shed to completely cover the cake hoop in a variety of textured greenery. The effect was really striking and the lush green and white worked well with the natural wood and metal surfaces.

We wanted to add to the grandiose staircase so went for a simple and chic look with a collection of fern and palm filled artisan lanterns from our collection and greenery garnishes at either side of the bottom step. Finishing off the look, I added our styling touches on the window sills and dressers at either side of the staircase. I styled candlesticks on glass and brass trays, collections of candlesticks and recycled glass bud vases with greenery stems and a glass and brass drop box for collecting wedding post.

The design was devised to show a contemporary way to bring greenery into your wedding decor, to bring the outside in and to reflect the beauty in the surrounding valley. The added greens in these areas of the venue really made the other textures and surfaces stand out. The botanical cake hoop display in particular was a real talking point.

A range of our newest hire and styling props were showcased and featured in this open day set up including our hand lettered chalkboard signs, dark oak wood easels, basket of blankets, white wedding umbrellas for outdoor weddings and our Polaroid guest book gallery easel.

All of these props are available now for hire. For pricing follow the link to our Hire Collection or complete our contact form to request a personalised quote for items in the collection.

Photographs with kind permission from Farlie Photography