nothing like a nice message to get you off to a good start!
Thank you so much for the wonderful job you guys did with the chair covers and sashes for our wedding at Buxted on 9th April. The venue looked amazing, thank you for your time and effort in your help with this.
I shall definitely recommend you to any friends who get married!
Kind regards
Claire
the only downside to the popularity of the covers is we have had our first laundry casualty - RIP old tumble dryer, you served us well ( although according to the manufacturer it wasn’t designed to run 24/7 !)
We worked twice recently with the lovely Lisa Devlin
We were showing our new battery powered flameless candles in the vintage candelabras at the Royal Pavilion for a very unique, very special event.
Read all about it in Lisa’s blog and see some more superb pictures. I took my own video of the candles flickering just to show how realistic they look. So if you are having a special event where no candles are allowed –you can now, consider using ours!
Last Saturday I had half a day off (thanks to my boss- Donal J) as I was running the Brighton marathon on Sunday
On the morning of the marathon the pollen team dropped me off at the start at Preston Park and then they shot off to Buxted Park with my instructions ringing in their ears – ‘ make sure there are no creases in the chair covers’ ‘ make sure it all looks gorgeous for the bride!’ ‘ Come and see me at the finish!’
According to my pollen spectators I had gone a very odd colour at 24 miles – grey – and at 25 miles Donal was there to spur me on to the finish with the immortal words ‘ well done Dex only a mile to go – will you be too tired to do some petal orders later?!’
Anyway I finished in 4 hours 19 minutes, it was a fantastic experience but…………………….never again!
( Good luck to all those running in London this weekend)
I didn’t really have to do petal orders , expensive wine and superb Thai takeaway were the order of the day – result ( I might have another go next year at this rate!)
Follow the link, this was such an adventurous day for us, snow was lying thick and although it looks stunning in Lisa’s shots - delivering in the pollen van was a bit of a challenge………
The orangery at Buxted Park with chair cover brooch detail
Bartering is the way forward for 2010 I have decided. We have been doing some wedding cake tops for Terri at Cakesbydesign for her recent wedding fairs and a huge chocolate cake arrived at pollen towers- result!
We helped Sharon at Cupcakes Couture at a recent wedding at Buxted Park and low and behold a superb box of mini cupcakes appeared – I couldn’t wait to eat one, I did that thing where you just shove it in and then realise that everyone is looking at you, as if they have just observed some very uncouth heathen behaviour – I had got icing up my nostrils – those cakes are seriously delicious.
Next door to us at the Knoll business centre are chocoholly and her colleague at the chocolate teapot, both are serious chocolatiers so guess who (me) has developed a great system of swapping flowers for chocolates………….. they both are combining some serious chocolate taste sensations and I feel it only my duty to sample as many as I can as possible – it’s a tough life but someone’s got to do it – if only a wine merchant would move in to the knoll…………………
We have been super busy which is brilliant and the thing is we have been working at venues new to us like west heath house near Tunbridge wells which was fantastic ( thank you to the team there) and old favourites like Hotel du Vin and the Old Ship in Brighton. Of course one of the favourites has to be Buxted Park, not just with us, but with customers looking for a unique setting for their special event, Lisa Devlin has got some great new pictures on her blog where she has captured so many more of the unique aspects of the magical setting.
We worked with Lisa on Nicola’s special day as she wanted our chair covers but as a florist wanted to do her own flowers and what a great job she did. The whole day encapsulated to me what is so great about Buxted Park, you can do as much of the venue decoration you want, if you want to do some yourself or have a family member to help you (on Friday and Saturday we did another joint effort) or ask us to take care of everything with one of our unquie packages – the team at Buxted don’t insist you use certain suppliers- it’s a blank canvas – have what you want and make it special for you.
To be fair we did have customer recently who said ‘are you pollen boys on some sort of kickback because whenever we go to Buxted Park you always seem to be there’ - ‘in fact we see that van of yours constantly around Sussex! ‘Well it’s a good point and worth getting out in the open in the sense that as a customer you want to know if a recommendation is genuine or a bit of money is changing hands - be reassured there are no behind the scenes deals being done- we don’t have any financial agreements with any venues to generate bookings – however Terri or Sharon if you are reading this there is always a deal to be done at pollen towers - cake for flowers!
Happy planning
Dex
PS; if you are a wine merchant considering moving into the knoll business centre, they do have preferential rates and we would be happy to extend the bartering system for a nice supply of Sauvignon Blanc…………..!
I took some pictures of my own to show the new sash buckles for our Pollen Package customers and also how the table centres are tied so they can be lifted out and given to special guests. to be fair we know if you are spending your hard earned money then you want good value so if the arrangement can be picked out of the vase at the end of the night already tied to be given as a gift to a special friend then its double value.
we also matched the petals and confetti to the colour theme with our unique handmade boxes and cones too
All the daffodils are out at Buxted Park and the Easter theme carried on right through the hotel, lots of fragrant hyacinths too and tete a tete narcissi, ranunculas were wired in the chair sashes and lots of our mellow yellow freeze dried petals scattered and ready for confetti, we have also found an antique basket for our cones. There was an Easter egg hunt going on before the ceremony in the Orangery, a great informal atmosphere. All the decorations had been designed to be given as gifts in planted containers so memories of the special day will come up every year - how romantic is that?
We have been very busy luckily and booked every day for the last 14 days so apologies if you are waiting for a quote or reply from one of us, we’re working hard to catch up. On Tuesday 6th we will be closed for the day and then back to business on Wednesday the 7th