NICK SPANSWICK
EVENTS AND DESIGN
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Secret Garden wedding
This bride wanted us to transform her parents' property into an abandoned wild garden straight out of the pages of 'The Secret Garden' or 'Great Expectations'.
We extended her terrace to allow us to build a broken down garden gazebo for guests to dine inside, complete with broken old pots and trailing baskets of wild potted plants. We transformed her very modern looking swimming pool into a Monet-style tableau of wild grasses and floating flower petals, and created a bar by turning her garden pergola into an overgrown garden shed complete with antique tools and garden accessories.
Seen here is the invitation that we created tp resemble a page from an old book - we sent the invitations out in boxes containing custom frames of dried pressed flowers to set the tone for a magical night from another era.
Another view of the pressed flower frames that we sent out along with the invitations - each one containing unique arrangements of real mountain and forest flowers from the hills around Bursa.
The house before we began decoration. We needed to seat 50 guests in front of the house for dinner so we needed to build a deck to extend the terrace over the pool.
My visual for how I wanted the garden to look, with a wild garden gazebo, a run-down garden shed, an overgrown fountain, and even an abandoned wheelbarrow.
Building and covering the deck over the pool for us to seat 50 guests for dinner.
A view towards the small garden pergola that the family uses in the summer months.
We decided to utilize its position in the garden and use it as a bar - but a bar inside a garden shed.
Installing the shed covering for the pergola.
Looking towards the ceremony area.
The groom played the couple's favorite song live on a piano as the bride walked down the aisle, watched by guests seated at little benches overgrown with wild grasses and flowers.
After this magical ceremony, guests moved across the bridge to the dinner area beneath the overgrown gazebo, where the table was decorated with custom designed individual placemats in different styles, vintage china and porcelain pieces we collected from flea markets and a riot of colourful wild flowers bursting with happiness.