Beautiful 3 part fusion wedding at Botleys Mansion
When I met with Sheideh, Moray and their family, it was immediately obvious that this was not going to be your everyday wedding in terms o the flow of the day which made it even more exciting. Sheideh and Morray wanted to seamlessly bring together Sheideh’s Iranian Persion traditions, with Morray’s (you guessed it!) Scottish heritage and it was a real pleasure to be involved in their complex but wonderful plans for a fusion wedding at Botleys Mansion.
So what do I mean by a a fusion wedding at Botleys Mansion? The whole day would be at Botleys and would be starting with traditional civil ceremony in the Atrium, followed by an Iranian wedding ceremony in the Green Room upstairs, and concluding with the wedding breakfast back in the Atrium. Similar to Western weddings, in Persian culture weddings are broken into a ceremony and reception, the most notable tradition in a Persian wedding ceremony being the “sofreh aghd”, where the couple sits in front of a decorative spread that represents a symbolic connection between the couple and their families. The “sofreh aghd” is simply the Persian wedding table. It is laden with many different elements that each carry rich symbolism.
After much consultation on a lovely planning afternoon at Botleys Mansion, we came up with all the details, which were to enable Sheideh and Morray to use the flowers through the day without doubling up unnecessarily. The colour scheme was to be ivory, blush , nude and dusty pinks and lovely foliage to echo the bridesmaids deep teal coloured dresses.
Guests were welcome to the venue by a beautiful floral runner at the front of the mansion, which later became a lovely focal point during group photos with all the guests lined up on the front stairs.
Sheideh who wore a beautiful lace A-skirted dress carried a bouquet of vintage pink and nude pink roses with textural pink rice flowers, and a scattering of lacy gypsophila to echo the dress texture and the bridesmaids matched her bouquet, with some added foliage.
The civil ceremony was styled by banking the stairs and the ceremony area by four tall vase centrepieces and the stairs were dressed with garlands of foliage and posies of flowers dotted along their length, and finishing off with floor meadows on the lower steps and candlelit lanterns. Behind the ceremony area we created a beautiful floral bar by arranging flower displays lined along the high up window ledge above the large window in the atrium. These displays and the tall vases worked really nicely to later dress the ceremony space for the Iranian ceremony in the Green Room, and were then later all reused back in the atrium, either as table centrepieces or as lovely backdrop high up behind the top table.
For the wedding breakfast the guest tables were dressed with a mix of tall and low vases with beautiful flowers and Sheideh choose to dress the chiavari chairs with teal organza sashes to link in with the colour of the bridesmaids dresses.
Finally we created a long organic trailing garland of olive and eucalyptus and flowers, to style the ornate gilded seated plan frame and dressed the gorgeous cake with fresh flowers dotted down the tiers.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this post, and loved the way two worlds met in harmony at this gorgeous fusion wedding at Botleys Mansion. If you are planning your wedding at Botleys Mansion and need some floral planning help, please get in touch. We are very close to Botleys Mansion and have worked with countless couples to dress this amazing wedding venue. Whether your wedding day is as complex as this or as simple as they come, we’d love to help you enhance the natural beauty of the amazing Botleys, so please get in touch.
The relaxed and beautiful photography in this post are thanks to documentary photographer Indigo Images . Thank you so much Sheideh and Morray for sharing these with us.
