camera trouble and wedding bells

Trying to take some pictures of yesterday's wedding flowers and realised the occasional glitsch with my camera seems to have become chronic, so I hope the official photographers will send me something. The wedding was at Barnsley House where the late great (in her very specific time) Rosemary Verey originally lived and gardened. So I was interested to see what had become of the gardens. It was a wet and windy day so not the best for seeing a late July garden, but frankly the gardens really don't look much better than yours or mine, though her main lay out and structures survive, and of course most of the plants were originally planted by her. However, the hotel is fantastic, and I was extremely well looked after and ate quite the best most delicious chocolate shortbread biscuit I have ever had in my life with coffee when I arrived. It melted in my mouth but still managed to have some substance about it, gorgeous! So I would recommend a trip there if only for the coffee and biscuits.

The bride and groom were on a strict colour scheme, which I don't usually deal with to be honest, but as they are friends of my son I was happy to give it a go, and actually pink, white and silver are very easy colours to satisfy at this time of year. In the mix I used Francoa The Bride, white Cupid's Dart and Love in the Mist along with Covent Garden gyp, larkspurs, roses, white pinks, hydrangeas, astrantias, achillea The Pearl and lots more, and tucked a hidden sprig of myrtle in the bouquet from my mother's garden where she grows a huge myrtle tree that was originally struck from a cutting from a piece of myrtle in Queen Victoria's bouquet. I have tried and tried to get cuttings from the same tree to grow here, and my mother has tried and tried to get me sturdy cuttings, but so far we have both failed so she is on a postal delivery service to me for weddings! I forgot to tell either of the couple that there were some significantly bridal flowers in the mix. All buttonholes and corsages were different, but when I saw how tiny many of the female guests were I rather wondered if I should have gone for more minimal corsages as some were rather voluptuous!

Then I had to make up a bouquet for a bride for tomorrow, to post to her, and buttonholes. She really wanted hollyhocks as her groom comes from an island where hollyhocks are the national flower, but all my experiments to get them to stay for posting had failed, so in the end she had scabious and herb buttonholes and a vastly mixed bouquet. She sweetly got in touch first thing this am to say they were lovely, so job done!

I will try to get camera problems sorted, as there is so much lovely to photograph here at the moment, despite the wonderful torrential rain.