Welcome to Stem Stories - a little corner of digital world where I get to share my passion for all things floral. Thanks for dropping by. No lofty ambitions or agendas here, just a heartfelt desire to spread a little flowery fairy dust on your day. Expect lots of piccies and not so many words so please make yourself a cuppa and see what piques your interest. Here are just some of the topics that I plan to muse on in the coming weeks.
Wedding flowers decoded - newly engaged and completely baffled by wedding flowers terminology? I will decode the jargon and explain what those thingamabobs are called.
The right florist for you - how to find your floral designer and why connection is everything.
Something borrowed, something blue - real wedding inspiration with pale blue florals.
Spring Superstars - my favourite wedding flowers of the season.
Barn Wedding Flowers - a gentle desktop tour of our favourite Cotswold barn venues.
The Modern Bride - real wedding inspiration with luxe floral styling in white, blush and raspberry.
Today's musings however are about the role that flowers play in our modern world. Two of the biggest flower gifting dates of the year will soon upon us - Valentine's Day and Mother's Day. And amidst all the commercial craziness that surrounds these days, when stripped right back, the core message is one of love - from lover to lover, child to mother. The gift of flowers, be they a humble handful of daffodils or a lush bouquet of the finest roses, convey the strength of feeling held by one human being for another. The quiet joy felt when the recipient looks at their flowers is quite literally a hug for the soul, a precious reminder that they matter, that they are loved and appreciated for all the things they do, big and small.
Yes, it's true that cut flowers don't last long, their beauty is fleeting but so much of modern life is about impermanence, and perhaps that's the real essence of gifted flowers - a simple message to live more in the moment and express how much another person means to you. All of which calls to mind a line from one of my favourite poems, Desiderata, by Max Erhmann, "Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the place of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass."
Keep flowering on folks until next time
Fi xx
Photography by kind permission of Charlotte Burns Photography and Kate Cullen
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