Thicket Priory Wedding Flowers: An Immersive Floral Experience
Image by Emma Ryan Photographer: Floral installation cascading down the staircase at Thicket Priory.
When I was asked to design a bespoke experience for my couple’s Thicket Priory wedding flowers last year, it was a brief that really spoke to my creative soul. The vision was to transform the venue, creating flowing floods of flowers to guide guests through the wedding weekend. Over four days, the grade II listed Victorian house became reminiscent of a living, breathing meadow of blooms, with a fresh colour palette and contemporary styling to complement and elevate its grand historical spaces.
In the name of creating a truly immersive journey through floral art, we left hardly a space untouched at Thicket Priory. My couple’s dream was that the flowers were at one with the venue, seemingly grown where they stood and taking their guests on a visual and physical journey through each day’s events, in much the same way a carefully curated garden lovingly pulls you from place to place.
Image by Emma Ryan Photographer: Wedding flower centerpiece
Arriving on Friday, my team and I gave life to the first installations that would greet my couple and their guests on arrival. We ensured that Thicket Priory was filled with flowers everywhere you looked: on the mantlepieces, climbing from the floor and furniture in the lounge area, standing proudly in urns at the entrances, and dripping down the outdoor staircase. For each event we created new floral designs: the windowsills at breakfast, table arrangements for the Friday welcome meal, vases for outdoor tables and full floral meadows on the external doors.
On Saturday morning we returned in secret to decorate the grand staircase, a real focal point with flowers cascading all the way from the landing at the top. This was a special statement space as my couple chose to replace their ceremony with a ‘first look’ on the stairs, surrounded by beautiful blooms.
Image by Emma Ryan Photographer: Floral staircase Installation
We paid another visit on Sunday morning to give the flowers a refresh and ensure they were still looking at their best for the next couple of days, adding new stems and swapping out any that were damaged or not looking their finest. The ballroom also needed to be transformed for the events the following day, so we changed the table arrangements to create a whole new design with the same essence.
Image by Emma Ryan Photographer: Thicket Priory stair case dressed with abundant luxury flowers
Thicket Priory Wedding Flowers: Design Choices
Every design proposal is made bespoke for each couple, and the colours and types of flowers I use are led by you - your style, aesthetic preferences, favourite blooms, sentimental connections you can read more about adding meaningful touches to your wedding flowers here. In the case of these Thicket Priory wedding flowers, my bride wanted a classic, timeless look with a modern edge - the perfect embodiment of the venue itself. She was a lover of foliage but wanted to incorporate a full, abundant floral look with lots of movement and freedom. I combined these key factors with my vision for a flowing meadow to create the finished design.
The colour palette felt very fresh and light, lifting some of the darker tones and textures found throughout Thicket Priory. Rich green foliage framed tall white delphiniums and soft, romantic cow parsley, and we added depth and warmth with toffee roses and delicate tones of nectarine, terrcaotta and dusty pink. The addition of peonies and garden roses helped bring a country garden opulence to the whole design, with late May and June being the perfect time of year for fluffy peony lovers.
Image by Emma Ryan Photographer: Wedding breakfast inspiration
It was such a joy to create these Thicket Priory wedding flowers, and the creative freedom and trust offered to me by the couple was one of the key factors in our ability to craft a magically immersive end result. This was a perfect example of doing a wedding exactly the way you want it and eschewing the confines of tradition, and I am hugely grateful to my team of 12 freelancers for helping to give life to this wonderland!
After the wedding guests were all given bunches of the florals to take home, and the rest donated to the nuns at Thicket Priory and to St Lenard’s hospital in York, reducing any floral waste from the delightfully decadent weekend.
Image by Emma Ryan Photographer: Floral installation on the beautiful staircase at Thicket Priory.
What next?
Take a look at my galleries from real weddings and editorials to get a feel for what’s possible. When you’re ready to start on your own personal floral design story, just head over to my contact page and send me a hello.
“We used Nichola for our wedding and it was truly spectacular. The flowers also lasted ages, they were still fresh for two weeks after the big day! Very impressive work, and we highly recommend her.”
