Zara’s Winter Wonderland – and the Last Minute Carnations

Having had a bit more time to gather our thoughts about Zara Phillips (now Tindall)’s bouquet from her wedding this past Saturday, we figured we would share a few as it seems our posts about the royals are terribly popular! Greetings UK and AU readers, should you return for this one! Now that we are done harumphing about the stolen sleeves, we got a good look at the church flowers as well as the bouquet in further detail.

First of all, can we say how much we love the shot of the designer on the ladder finishing the Church flowers?

https://mylittleflowershop.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/radiant2bbride2bzara2bphillips2bbeams2bas2bshe2bmakes2bher2bway2binto2bthe2bchurch2bto2bmarry2bmike2btindall2b3.jpg?w=300 It is beyond gratifying to know that even at Royal weddings there is last minute scurrying and hurrying. Somehow we had in our minds this picture of posh English designers in beautiful sun hats admiring their perfect work finished since 3AM. So the guy on the ladder furiously adding flowers a few hours before the wedding was marvelous.

About the flowers themselves: LOVE them!  Our favorite thing: she’s re-introduced the use of carnations into high end floral decor. Yes – worked in there between those gorgeous hydrangea blooms, are puffy white carnations. Carnations get a bad rap – they are so useful and come in a million colors. Somewhere along the way they got labeled as cheap, and it’s true the are budget friendly. But it’s all in how you use them, and we’ll address that it another blog entry. Needless to say Zara – well done my dear.

The bridal bouquet itself is an interesting one. Retro in a 1974 “Winter Wedding Wonderland” way, it doesn’t give the slightest hint of a summer wedding. Not that it takes color to do that by the way, but there’s something in the formality of this arrangement that makes it a bit too chilly. If you plan to include the frosty looking “Dusty Miller” in a bouquet, we recommend using some color to offset that winter feeling. We do like that Zara went with a hand tied bouquet with no ribbon hiding the stems. Perhaps she’ll start a bare-stemmed trend on both sides of the pond.

Whatever shall we do now that all the Royal weddings of the summer are done? I suppose we didn’t truly cover Princess Charlene of Monaco. Back to Monte Carlo, anyone?

Zara Phillips (now Tindall) steals her sleeves from a Palm Springs Bride!

That Other Royal Wedding
Photo by Martin Rickett Mike Tindall and Zara Phillips emerging from the church after their wedding today.
The bouquet looks on the wintery side to us.  Of interest- the lack of ribbon wrapped stems. That trend has stuck for so long – could a high profile bride skipping the demure touch lead to a renaissance of bare stems?
On a fashion note, what our Royal brides have accomplished is the end the reign of strapless gowns.  Sleeves!  Love it! Zara’s sleeves look awfully familiar though, we’re going to have to do better at keeping those royal designer spies away from our Palm Springs brides!
Silk chiffon cap sleeves from a wedding last fall. Were there Royal spies?