Connecting with friends through flowers

Three bouquets to tell three stories of friendship

We need more flowers – they are perfect to show that someone special that you care. A spontaneous bouquet can bring us closer together and help us talk more openly and intimately, ultimately strengthening our social bonds. The most meaningful bouquets represent something personal to the individual, like remembering a first holiday together, using a range of floral colours, textures, smells and shapes to truly reflect the joy your friendship inspires.

We paired lifestyle influencer Katherine Ormerod and florist of the moment, Matt Richardson of Urban Flower Co to create three bespoke bouquets for three special friendships in Katherine’s life.

Urban Flower Co have been making their mark with experimental, bold designs that push the boundaries for traditional arrangements since 2007. We challenged them to design three show-stopping bouquets inspired the personal stories behind three of Katherine’s very different friendships.

Matt himself is a firm believer in the power of flowers to visually bring to life the history and significance of any relationship. Matt explains: “When putting an arrangement together, it’s really important for me to capture an element of the personality or character of the recipient and feed this into the design. I always hope to create something that I think they will love and connect with.”

Bouquet 1

Katherine’s friendship: former colleague, stylist and young mum

“For this bouquet, we decided to go for a fun and vibrant colour palette, using bold orange spider dahlias, purple peonies and pink caraluna roses. We created a bouquet that was unstructured, and a little wild and natural in style and shape, which represents her friend’s natural artistic flair but also the lack of conformity that comes with having a young child.”

Bouquet 2

Katherine’s friendship: mentor who helped her start her freelance career

“This bouquet had a slightly more classic vibe to it, representing the professional relationship this friendship was born out of – we worked to one colour tone and kept to a simple variety of flowers, sticking mainly to peonies with just a few added elements to add intrigue. The slightly wilder nature of the fillers- astilbe, statis and black dill - made for a nice contrast against the bolder, rounder peonies.”

Bouquet 3

Katherine’s friendship: yoga teacher, nanny and life guru

“With Katherine’s friend being a California native, it seemed only right to keep the tone bright and fresh using an array of yellows – from the pale yellow bartzella peony, to the pops of brighter yellows of the craspedia and achillea, creating a real burst of colour. To finish the bouquet off with style and really make for a statement piece, we added a couple of stems of pampas grass, which dries quite gracefully and can be kept afterwards in a simple vase on its own.”

Read more about the power of flowers and how they help people make for more meaningful relationships.

About our partners:
To find out more about Uran flower Co and their creative floral design, click here.
To be inspired by Katherine, visit her Instagram page.