June Brides and Gardens

Every landscape gardener likes to believe his or her garden is as pretty as a picture. Recently, my garden was the backdrop for a series of bridal photos...

This afternoon a large wedding party used our yard for picture-taking after the church ceremony. Yes, it was all arranged ahead of time and bride, mother-of-the-bride and photographer did a walk-through about two weeks before the big day. The grandmother and grandfather of the bride are long-time friends and neighbors.

I was thrilled when the bridal party walked into the yard...their dresses were a light blue-mauve color and nosegay-type bouquets were in shades of pink (gerbera daisys) and the same light blue-mauve color (sweet peas)...these are the same colors of my late peonies (shades of pink) which are flanked by Nepeta (catmint) (shades of blue).

The photographer used the peony/catmint setting for photos of the bride and groom, and their large wedding party. Our 20-foot Pinus strobus variety Pendula (weeping pine) with white star-shaped flowers of Cornus kousa (Kousa dogwood) at its back served as the setting for standard family of the bride / family of the groom photos.

It poured rain all morning, but shortly before the bridal party arrived, the sun peeked out. They could walk on the lawn (which was mowed on Thursday!) and the sky was just overcast enough to make the colors vivid! Such beautiful young people, also! I like to think my garden setting and the low-key photographer allowed photo-taking time to be relaxed and fun. I can hardly wait to see the picture proofs!