Colourful Native Wedding at the Palais Theatre, Franklin

For a February wedding, the brief was "colourful" and "native" with the bride's dress in a dark bottle green.  What fun!  

A beautiful White King Protea formed the centrepiece of the bride's bouquet, making sure there was a real contrast with the dark green of the dress.  The King Protea was surrounded by lots of colour and fabulous foliage.  

Long arching branches of wattle and some native Billy Buttons provided some yellow.  A Scarlet Ribbons pincushion and some stunning rich red flowering gum added red.  

Just look at that dazzling colour!  Corymbia Ficifolia is a summer gem.

There was a yellow and red Mardi Gras Ribbons Pincushion too.  

Blue was added with sea holly and globe thistles.  For foliage, there was some lush Risdon Peppermint with lovely arching branches, and some native Coral Fern.  

For the floral crown I used more Risdon Peppermint, wattle, and some flowering gum buds.  

The grooms boutonniere carried on with the primary colours of red flowering gum, blue sea holly and yellow billy balls, with the addition of Ridson Peppermint foliage and some Corymbia Ficifolia leaves.  

The reception was held at the Palais Theatre, Franklin which is a gorgeous old art deco stlye theatre.  The bride and groom were decorating the venue themselves and wanted to spread some rich colour around.  They had hired a collection of gorgeous vintage amber glass bottles and jars from Style-My-Day and I filled them with lot of colour and texture.  

For some larger vases, there were more pincushions, masses of flowering gum, wattle, Billy Balls and some more of that gorgeous Risdon Peppermint foliage. 

I really enjoyed playing with these amazing rich colours.  

It really was a pleasure to be involved in this unique celebration.  I wish the bride and groom as colourful and beautiful life together as their wedding day was!

Hip Hip Hooray! Celebrating 100 Posts with a Giveaway

Back in January 2012, I wrote my first Swallows Nest Farm blog post.  I began blogging after having to seriously re-think the way I ran my flower farm business.  In 2011 I spent 5 months away from home with my little girl in hospital on the mainland of Australia.  With a sick baby to care for, changes needed to be made.  When I began, blogging gave me a way of focussing on strategies for the future of the farm while not being able to actually get much outdoor work done.  As time has passed, it has become an important part of my flower farm business both for the exposure that it provides, and also for the way it helps me to see where I need to go next.

So here we are, more than 3 years and 100 blog posts later and I'm surprised that I still feel I have so much to explore by way of blogging.  I'm even more surprised at the attention this humble blog receives, with well over 50,000 visits.  I would never have expected it!

So I feel that a celebration is in order!

I am giving away a little pack of celebratory goodness including a
Linocut Hand Painted Waratah Bookmark from trees4thewood
4 Packs of Swallows Nest Farm Seeds
(including Telopea Truncata,
Leucadendron Argenteum,
Conrymbia Ficifolia and
Dryandra Formosa)
A Blue Gum Linocut Notebook with a Myrtle Beech Twig Pencil from trees4thewood
and some Swallows Nest Farm postcards.

You can enter the giveaway by sharing your favourite Swallows Nest Farm blog post, or by visiting our Facebook page (while you're there, if you like what you see, you could follow our page too).
The giveaway will run for a week and a winner will be chosen at random at midnight on Monday 14th September.

Enter using the rafflecopter counter below.
Entry is open to everyone!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks so much for visiting Swallows Nest Farm blog!