The Wild Bunch

From photo booths to icing-free cakes, each year seems to bring a new wedding fad. This summer, many of Goodwood’s brides will be carrying wildflower bouquets down the aisle. Incorporating freshly picked meadow flowers and foraged foliage with larger cut-flowers, this new style is relaxed and informal and gives a pleasing nod to the natural environment.

“I don’t think this style of bouquet will ever disappear,” says Hannah Agnes Antmann of Saint Floral, which specialises in wild wedding flowers. “In the same way that what we wear has become more relaxed, we’re starting to embrace nature for all its quirks too.” 

Indeed, while cow parsley, astrantia and other varieties of wildflower have a tendency to droop, Antmann believes this is part of their charm. She uses wild herbs and foraged elements such as pear and almond blossom to add fragrance, and seeks out grasses and hardier plants like heather to add texture and ensure the bouquet stands out in photographs.

“There’s a beauty to combining big blooms with meadow flowers,” explains Nik Southern of Dalston-based Grace & Thorn, whose Keep it Green foliage bouquet regularly sells out. “It’s about mixing textures, layers and colours.”

Patricia Duggan, in-house florist at the Goodwood Estate, picks fresh flowers from the Duke and Duchess’s garden, and sources everything from spring blossom from the trees, cowslips and bee orchids from the lawn, and sprigs of ivy, berries and thistles from around The Kennels in winter. Given that a bridal bouquet only needs to last a day, flowers with a shorter shelf life, such as bluebells and sweet peas, can also be used, and one added bonus of using wild foliage is that it dries very effectively, meaning a bouquet or arrangement can be preserved long after the wedding day.

When it comes to knowing what to pick, some combinations are just too beautiful to be tinkered with. “I saw the first stems of Lily of the Valley coming up in my garden this morning,” says Duggan, “and they were interwoven with violets, primroses and other wildflowers that had been blown in by the wind and had settled. There’s just no way you could improve on a gift from nature like that – it’s really rather special.”

This article is taken from the Goodwood magazine, Summer 2018 issue.