Sometimes after a really busy, stressful time you need a few weeks to fully relax, take stock of everything and evaluate where you want to go in life. With Valentines and Mothering Sunday well out of the way, and our new approach to weddings giving us more time to be creative and bespoke with our work, it also means we get to share all that gorgeousness with you. I've been thinking about what we want our blog to achieve, not just the whole get more comments, have more likes mentality, but more the 'what does this blog represent' mentality. What do I want this to be about. When I read blogs, the bits I like best are the personal post entries, or a real look behind the scenes. I feel I can so connect with that person and more importantly I want to find out about their life - I want to be part of their club! I want to make our blog more of a personal journal, where we can freely share our flowery world with you, and hopefully you'll join us and peep at what we're getting up to. Its not going to be about presenting the perfect image to the world, but its going to be about capturing a feeling and trying to convey the smells, the colour and ambiance of the shop.

So welcome to OUR CLUB, the place where you can find out what real florists get up to behind all the perfect Instagram shots. I'll be posting weekly on a variety of different topics about flower life and up next week will be a blog about how we choose what flowers to sell on our stand. Its going to be a good one!

Here's a picture of me making you a virtual 'welcome to our club' flower crown. Wear it with pride!

TTFN x

Every man should wear flowers … and not just on his wedding day. I’m such a firm believe in this – a little nod to the seasons pinned onto ones jacket certainly gives the wearer such an air of distinction it would be a shame to limit this effect just to your wedding day.

And boys, guess what – you don’t have to wear a single rose with a teeny tiny leaf … no! The modern man dons a tiny collection of fleurs fully embracing the season. Here to inspire (as always) are 3 of our winter buttonhole recipes (or if your feeling awfully posh, boutonnieres)

I’m still pinning down a name to call them, I know everyone KNOWS what a buttonhole is, but it just sounds so … none floral! Perhaps a floral jacket pin … or a jacket posy …. Ideas very much welcome!

A huge hello to all our new readers and followers! To celebrate you joining our flowery crew I thought a little introduction about myself might be in order.

No one wants to read a huge blow-by-blow account of how much I adore flowers (heck you probably already guessed that they are the greatest thing on the planet!) Instead this is 10 fun facts about me. A chance for your to get behind the florist, so to speak!

Now I must hold my hands up here and completely admit that I'm also indebted to Karen over at Smashing The Glass for this. I loved her 10 facts and have totally borrowed her format. If you’re planning a Jewish Wedding or celebration you totally have to visit her blog Smashing The Glass – its packed full of wedding gorgeousness and inspiration overload.

1. I've worked with flowers since I was 16 and we always talked about owning a shop over the dinner table with my family. We opened Green Parlour in 2008, when I was 25.

2. A chicken once escaped in the shop and hid behind the toilet. It took over an hour to free the bird and a total re-build of the facilities. I bonded with one of the most amazing women, Debs, during this ordeal and I’m so grateful to have her as a lifelong friend (thanks chicken!)

3. I may be a tiny bit obsessed with Kate Bush. And I cried when she sang Hounds of Love live in 2014.

4. I happened to be involved in the flowers for the royal wedding in 2011. It was the most amazing experience and something that not everybody knows about me. I took the call from Catherine in the lavatory so no one would hear!

5. I can play the piano, recorder, violin and oboe and I’m currently teaching myself the ukulele.

6. If I hadn’t become a florist my other vocations I had pinpointed were an astronaut and a pool shark/hustler

7. I do have a favourite flower … sweet pea’s! I cannot help but stick my nose in them and breathing in heavily.

8. I LOVE the smell of play-doh.

9. I drink far too much tea – around 8 cups a day. I know I should cut back, but floristry is a cold job and the tea is required for warmth.

10. I talk about flowers a lot in my sleep. My latest musing went a little like this “I’ve almost run out of mistletoe” …. uttered in February.

We'd love to hear your 10 fun facts - pop over to our Facebook page to introduce yourself!

Its been such a fantastically crazy week at the Parlour - Christmas is well under way, the dried fruits are out, the pine cones have been gathered (and scattered in various boxes) and we're busy designing wreaths and table centres to adorn many a Berkshire table over the festive period. I have to say this time of year really catches my attention, the colours are amazing, the excitement as Christmas approaches and I know its not everyone's favourite, but I love the change in weather (especially when the sky is that amazing crisp blue that you only get in autumn)

Partly why I'm so excited about this Christmas season is I always feel totally inspired - I love the other seasons, but somehow the homemaking vibes of Christmas suddenly jolt into another gear and I want to create, make, grow, bake ... anything to make sure our home is the most welcoming place.  We work some ridiculously long hours all through December and taking a little time out to recharge not only the physical batteries but also the creatives is a must. Often I don my trainers and run and just that step away from the normal life rut is enough to get me thinking. I'm looking around constantly when I run thinking "how can I use that leaf, WOAH that colour would look awesome, hey we haven't tried that yet" I can feel all of my senses joining forces and I'm falling back in love with the amazing things nature can do. I literally feel I can do anything right now and that's all down to taking some inspiration and ME time.

Every year I always have a favourite wreath and I have to admint for the past 3 years our door has been donning a whole adornment of festive foliage on a moss base. We always used to use a floral foam base, but I find the moss just lasts so much longer and carries on looking just that little more fabulous. This year I'm wiring air plants, succulents and birch to create a living wreath feel - I'm so excited to show you, this will be hitting the blog very soon!

There are tons of ways you can add a little festive feel to your home - one of the main things at this time of year is using some gorgeous foliage. More is always more, the more textures, colours, shapes you can cram into your arrangement the better. This week we sent out 4 bouquets of just foliage and a hint of crab apple, its something I'm going to recreate for our festive table this year.

With over 20kg of pine cones to wire, I should really get back to working hard. Hopefully I'll have time to send through some more pictures of our latest exploits over the coming weeks and perhaps a few DIY tutorials to get your home "Christmas ready"

The past few weeks and months have been a total roller-coaster of emotion. There have been tears of overwhealming joy and moments of self-doubt. Its kind of given that running a business isn't all sweet smelling roses, there are a few rotten apples you have to deal with along the path. The hardest thing to do as a superwoman business owner to take time and step away from everything to take stock of these extreme emotions. Your in this crazy to do list mode that never gets any smaller and then suddenly a year goes by in the blink of an eye and you haven't given yourself time to reflect on the great achievements but equally the low ebbs. Over the past few weeks I've realised this is so so important. In fact I only took the time to reflect when running 26.2 miles ... a clear head with nothing to focus on but putting one foot in front of the other. There was no phones, no emails ... just me and a very long road.

So with 5 hours of running ahead of me my business/self evaluation began. When your so bogged down in doing the same thing year after year its so very hard to think about doing things differently. My epiphany moment came when I realised I had to start saying NO!

Its sounds so harsh ... especially in business. Are you crazy for turning down that last minute bouquet order which means you have to stay late at work and miss putting your child to bed? Are you crazy for turning down the opportunity to provide florals for a wedding when you've alreayd got something else booked in? We kind of got in the habit of saying YES to everything that came in the door - dont get me wrong we managed it all with gusto and enthusiasum, but the price has been overwhealming tiredness, no family time, little time to do some of the things we love doing and an out of control inbox (if you have one of these you'll know it feels like a huge noose around your neck constantly!)

When you start off thinking about all the stuff, it almost forces you to write a manifesto ... what do I want from my business, how do I want it to fit with my life, how do I want my staff to feel. Its like the most gigantic can of worms opens up before you and suddenly you have to think about doing something different.

2016 is already looking like a bumper year for beautiful weddings, we're already fully booked for June and July - and with what I'm about to type I don't want any of our existing brides to worry. One of the things we always used to sell ourselves on is not becoming a wedding factory - we really want to get to know our couples, form friendships, we're in this crazy creative wedding rollercoaster together, but with a whopping 56 weddings undertaken in 2015, I think we've reached burnout. We've lost sight of our goals. The bits we love most about weddings just haven't been so enjoyable undertaking so many. Don't get me wrong I cannot tell you how much I adore weddings but with around 40 - 60 hours worth of work per couple (read about what goes into your wedding flowers post here), taking on 56 has stretched us to our limits both physically and mentally.

So we feel super confident that by limiting ourselves to a smaller number of amazing weddings per year we're going to be putting all of our love and attention into our couples, which is exactly what they deserve! So it's with a huge smile on our face that we can shout from the rooftops we are now fully booked for 2016. We cannot wait to floral up our 2016 brides big days, I can tell you now there are some absolute corkers in the pipeline!

Watch this space for our awesome 2016 manifesto

Over the last few weeks I

The weeks just seem to keep rolling by, each one is filled with some of the most beautiful blooms to date - I'm fickle, each week brings a new favourite bouquet or a new floral crush. With only 2 weddings booked in for this weekend, we've also had a moment to catch our breath and write list upon list for the coming weeks floral extravaganzas.

First up were Kelly and Dan, such an amazing chilled out couple. They chose to tie the knot at Herons Barn, which was such a great match to their personalities. Their whole day was about creating a soft romantic vibe with lots of textures, hessian and flowers.

Kelly carried a bouquet of cosmos, dahlias, thistle, nigella, snapdragons, astilbe, sweet peas, lisianthus, scented geranium leaves, lavender, rosemary, purple sage, mint, scabiosa and veronica.

The night before Kelly and Dan's big day I was busy picking things from my garden to enhance the scent. I'm totally obsessed with scented geranium leaves and I knew when I met Kelly and Dan they just HAD to be included.

Next up Rachel and Gareth tied the know at Ufton Court on Sunday. This couple have been the most fun to work with and there's such joy walking away from a venue set up thinking "thats so them!" Rachel is a hair dresser and often works on clients wedding hair so she's seen all sorts of different weddings in her time. Opting for a rose filled affair, Rachel's bouquet contained some of my favourite rose varieties.

Rachel's bouquet contained Mentha roses, Safi roses, Old Dutch roses, Amnesia roses, Sweet Avalanche roses and Bombastic roses with the most subtle hints of scented berried eucalyptus. Although the roses are not the heady scented old English varieties, there was still the most amazing soft scent about this bouquet. Almost as if the roses had inhaled a parma violet or two.

We are now busy beavering away preparing list after list ready for 3 wonderful flower filled weddings this weekend. Now we just need a little sun.