Loch Lynne Wedding Flowers, Durbanville

Their story

Loch Lynne wedding flowers in white and green

Fabulous Flowers & Gifts, the Cape Town wedding florist founded by Josie van Aswegen in 1999, did the flowers for Carmen-Marie Payne and Emilio's Loch Lynne wedding in Durbanville on Saturday, 10 February 2024. Carmen and Emilio were married at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Parow, with pre-drinks and their reception at Loch Lynne Wine Estate on Koeberg Road. For their Loch Lynne wedding, Fabulous Flowers planned a romantic white and green look: all white flowers with generous greenery, a medium-to-large bridal bouquet, three bridesmaid bouquets, seven buttonholes and table flowers for 120 guests. Carmen found Fabulous Flowers on Google, through our page on Cape Town wedding flowers.

Careful planning was what made Carmen and Emilio's Loch Lynne wedding special. Josie van Aswegen planned six church arrangements on flat containers, built up high on the tray, so that several could travel from Parow to Loch Lynne and work a second time at the welcome sign and the doors. The bridal table was planned with a long, low piece trailing greenery, and every bouquet in the photographs is white roses. Photographed by Coba Photography, the wedding was featured in Mooi Troues in October 2024.

I · August 2023

Romantic wedding flowers, all white with greenery

Carmen's first message came through the form on our website in the middle of August 2023, six months before the wedding. She had found us on Google and was, in her words, "still looking for our florist to make the day extra beautiful".

Some briefs take three emails to understand. Hers took one line. "I love the idea of all white flowers and then beautiful greenery amongst it." She called it a romantic white and green look, and she was happy for the greenery to do a good share of the work. That is a generous instinct in a bride, and a wise one. Leaves give a white wedding its shape and its shadows. Without them, white flowers can look like a sheet of paper.

She set out what she needed with the same clarity. Six to eight arrangements for the church, four to six of which would come along to the reception for the welcome sign and the doors. A medium-to-large bouquet for herself. Three small bouquets for her bridesmaids. Seven buttonholes, for Emilio, the fathers and the groomsmen. One or two holders on each guest table, and more flowers and greenery on the bridal table.

She did not name a single variety, and we liked that. A bride who describes a feeling rather than a flower leaves room for the season to have its say. Her brief sat squarely in the tradition of romantic flowers: soft, white, a little abundant, never stiff.

Erika, from our customer care team, replied to say how much we looked forward to creating the day with Carmen, and we mean that every time we say it. Josie, who looks after our weddings herself, had a plan written the very next day.

“I love the idea of all white flowers and then beautiful greenery amongst it.”
Carmen, August 2023

Carmen and Emilio at the altar of Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Parow, with white flower arrangements beside the crucifix and bridesmaids in blush — The vows, with white flowers on the altar

II · 16 August 2023

Church wedding flowers, built up high on the tray

"Thank you for your photo references," Josie wrote on Wednesday, 16 August. "We would love to create for you." Then she did what she does best, which is to turn a list into a plan.

For Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Parow she proposed six arrangements in flat containers. A flat container sounds like a small detail. It decides almost everything. Arranged on a low, wide tray, flowers can be built up high and full without a vase to hide behind or to tip over, and the whole piece can be lifted, carried and set down somewhere else without being taken apart.

Carmen agreed: church pieces on flats, built up high on the tray. It meant the church would have height and presence for the ceremony, and that the same flowers would still have work to do that evening.

Church wedding flowers are their own discipline. A church is tall and is mostly seen from a distance, from the back pews, the aisle and the photographer's lens, so arrangements need scale and a clear outline more than fine detail. White does a great deal of that for you. It catches whatever light comes through the windows and holds on to it, while greenery spilling from the base keeps the outline soft.

What reached the church on the day is something we would rather confirm than imagine, so here we describe the plan.

III · Parow to Durbanville

From the church to a Loch Lynne wedding reception

The plan was simple to say and careful to do. After the vows, four to six of the church arrangements would leave Parow for Loch Lynne Wine Estate on Koeberg Road, where they would frame the welcome sign and dress the doors for pre-drinks and the reception.

Reusing ceremony flowers is one of the kindest things a couple can ask of a florist. Nothing is wasted, and guests meet the flowers again in a new light. It is also a matter of timing. The pieces have to be lifted as soon as the church empties, loaded flat and set again before the first guests reach the estate, so that nobody sees the move, only the result.

This is where the flat trays earned their place. A tall arrangement in a vase has to be emptied, wrapped and often rebuilt. One on a tray travels as it is, and arrives looking much as it did at the altar.

In the photographs the welcome sign is framed in white flowers and greenery, the same quiet scheme as the rest of the day. A welcome sign is the first thing anyone reads at a wedding. Dressed in white flowers, it becomes one of the first things they remember.

Carmen, Emilio and their bridal party of eight had got ready at Loch Lynne that morning, before the drive to Parow for the ceremony. So the estate held almost the whole day for them, from the quiet hours of getting ready to the reception that evening, and the flowers planned to greet their guests there would already have stood beside them in church.

Wedding welcome sign framed in white flowers and greenery at Loch Lynne Wine Estate, Durbanville — The welcome sign, framed in white

White hydrangea, white roses and gypsophila with eucalyptus in a low table centrepiece at Carmen and Emilio's Loch Lynne reception — Low and generous, so every face stays in view

IV · The reception

White and green wedding flowers for 120 guests

Loch Lynne seated 120 guests at twelve tables of ten, with a six-seater bridal table for the couple.

Carmen had asked for one or two holders on each guest table, and Josie's proposal set out low, round arrangements. Low matters at a round table of ten. Guests talk across it all evening, and a centrepiece that sits below eye level keeps every face in view while the flowers still fill the middle of the cloth. Good wedding table flowers are generous sideways and modest upwards.

For the bridal table she suggested something with more drama: "a long low arrangement… with lots of greenery protruding from each side and hanging down in the front", or, if Carmen preferred, two smaller ones.

It is our favourite kind of top table piece. Greenery that falls over the front edge softens the cloth, frames the couple in every photograph and gives a white scheme some movement. The white flowers sit in the middle like the lit part of a room, and the leaves do the rest.

Keeping 120 guests' worth of flowers to one white takes care. Whites are not all the same. Some roses lean cream, some lean faintly green, and some blush a little as they open. For a scheme like this we choose them side by side, the way we would for a white flower bouquet, and let the greenery bridge any small difference.

V · 10 February 2024

White rose bouquets and blush dresses in Durbanville

On the morning of Saturday, 10 February 2024, Carmen and her bridal party were getting ready at Loch Lynne.

In our favourite photograph from the day, Carmen and Emilio kiss in the middle of their bridal party. The bridesmaids are in blush. They all carry white rose bouquets, and behind them is a plain white wall with green fronds at its edge. It could almost be a picture of the brief itself.

Blush is a clever colour beside white flowers. It warms them without competing, so a bridesmaid in blush holding white roses looks as if the flowers have borrowed a little colour from her.

Carmen's bouquet was planned medium to large, so that it would hold its own against her dress and read clearly from the back of the church. The three bridesmaids' bouquets were planned as smaller versions in the same white and green, and seven buttonholes, for Emilio, the fathers and the groomsmen, were planned to carry the scheme onto the men's lapels.

A bridal party of eight is a small crowd in a photograph. White flowers in every hand give the eye a single line of light to follow, from one end of the group to the other, and right to the couple in the middle.

Carmen in her off the shoulder gown holding a round white rose bridal bouquet before the ceremony — A white rose bouquet, medium to large

Carmen and Emilio embracing among the vines in golden evening light on their Durbanville wedding day — Still white, still green

VI · October 2024

Romantic wedding flowers, in the pages of Mooi Troues

On 23 February 2024, Coba Photography wrote: "Thank you to everyone for making their day so beautiful!" It is a generous thing for a photographer to say. They see every supplier's work up close, through a lens, and they notice everything.

In October 2024 Carmen and Emilio's wedding appeared in Mooi Troues, the Afrikaans wedding magazine. There is something lovely about flowers that lasted a weekend turning up in print eight months later, still white, still green, still exactly as Carmen first described them in her email.

Looking back, this wedding was a lesson in how much a clear brief gives a florist. Carmen never sent a list of stems. She sent a feeling and a set of practical needs, and left us to join the two. That kind of trust is the best brief there is.

If you are planning white and green wedding flowers of your own, start where she did: with how you want the day to feel, the spaces you need to fill, and which pieces you would like to see twice. Our event flowers team plans the journey between them.

“Thank you to everyone for making their day so beautiful!”
Coba Photography, February 2024

Bridal table dressed with a long white flower and greenery runner in front of a wall of fairy lights at Loch Lynne Wine Estate, Durbanville — The bridal table, with greenery running its full length

Close view of white roses, gypsophila and eucalyptus in a bridal bouquet at Carmen and Emilio's Loch Lynne wedding

Tiered white wedding cake with a cascade of cream roses at Carmen and Emilio's reception

Gold rimmed place setting beside a greenery and gypsophila table runner with white flowers at Loch Lynne Wine Estate

Long low centrepiece of white hydrangea, white roses and gypsophila with eucalyptus between place settings at Carmen and Emilio's Loch Lynne wedding

The flowers

Carmen and Emilio's wedding flowers, piece by piece

Bridal bouquet: Medium to large, all white with lots of greenery, planned to hold its own in church. Roses lead in the photographs.
Bridesmaids: Three small bouquets in the same white and green, carried against blush dresses.
Buttonholes: Seven, for the groom, the fathers and the groomsmen.
Church: Six arrangements proposed in flat containers, built up high on the tray.
Welcome sign and doors: Four to six church pieces planned to move to Loch Lynne for the welcome sign and the doors.
Guest tables: Low, round arrangements, planned around one or two holders a table.
Bridal table: A long, low arrangement with greenery trailing from each side and down the front, or two smaller pieces.

Ivory whitePetal whiteLeaf greenFernBlush

In the mix

Bridal bouquet: white roses; Bridesmaids: white roses and gypsophila, with eucalyptus; Buttonholes: white roses; Welcome sign: white roses, white dahlias, white chrysanthemums, white snapdragons and gypsophila, with eucalyptus and soft greenery.

The reception hall at Loch Lynne Wine Estate, Durbanville, with a black and white checkered floor, chandelier and long tables dressed in white flowers and greenery

The place

Flowers for a Loch Lynne wedding, Durbanville

Loch Lynne Wine Estate is on Koeberg Road in Durbanville, in the wine country on Cape Town's northern side. For Carmen and Emilio it held the whole day apart from the vows: the place they got ready, then pre-drinks, then a reception for 120. As a florist delivering in Durbanville, we know the drive well from our Claremont studio. Loch Lynne is a wine estate in the Durbanville Wine Valley, on the slopes above Durbanville, and it is still a working farm, with vineyards around it and the city lights below after dark. Its function venue has a black and white checkered floor, chandeliers and tall floor to ceiling glass doors, and that crisp setting is exactly why a white and green scheme looked so at home here.

A church ceremony followed by an estate reception means two set-ups and one move. We plan the church pieces so they can leave as soon as the ceremony ends, and keep the reception pieces separate so they are in place well before guests arrive. When the couple are getting ready at the venue too, the bouquets and buttonholes go there first, early enough for the morning photographs.

February is high summer in the Cape, and heat is what we watch. White flowers show bruising and tired petals more readily than any colour, so they are conditioned well the day before, kept cool in transit and placed out of direct sun wherever we can. Greenery is more forgiving, which is one more reason a white and green scheme travels so well.

If you are comparing Durbanville wedding venues, our guide to wedding venues in Cape Town and our list of the best venues in Cape Town are good places to start.

FloralsFabulous Flowers & Gifts, Claremont (Josie van Aswegen, since 1999)

PhotographyCoba Photography

CoordinationRobyn, Bisous Events

CeremonyImmaculate Conception Catholic Church, Parow

ReceptionLoch Lynne Wine Estate, Durbanville

As featured inMooi Troues, October 2024

Planning notes

Planning church and Loch Lynne wedding flowers: what this wedding taught us

Plan reuse from the first email
Carmen named the pieces she wanted to see twice in her very first brief, and where they would go. That let Josie design the church flowers for the journey from the start. Tell your florist early which ceremony pieces you hope to bring to the reception.
Use flat containers for flowers that travel
Arrangements built up on a flat tray can be lifted and moved whole. Tall vases have to be emptied and rebuilt. If your ceremony and reception are at different places, ask for pieces designed to move.
Let greenery carry a white scheme
Carmen was happy to use more greenery, and it is what gave her all white wedding flowers their softness and shape. Greenery adds volume, frames the whites and travels well in summer heat.
Keep guest tables low
With round tables of ten, low arrangements let guests see and talk to each other all evening. Save height and drama for the bridal table, where greenery can trail over the front edge.
Describe the feeling, not the stems
Carmen never named a variety. She described a romantic white and green look and her practical needs. That gives a florist room to choose the best stems of the week, which is the heart of florist choice work.

Gallery

Carmen and Emilio leaving the church in Parow as guests and bridesmaids in blush throw petals

Carmen and Emilio walking hand in hand down a tree lined drive in the late afternoon sun

Carmen and Emilio kiss at the bridal table behind white flowers and greenery at their Loch Lynne reception

Good to know

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a Cape Town florist do flowers for a Loch Lynne wedding in Durbanville?

Yes, Fabulous Flowers planned Carmen and Emilio's Loch Lynne wedding on 10 February 2024 from our studio in Claremont, including bouquets for the bridal party and arrangements for a reception of 120 guests. Loch Lynne Wine Estate on Koeberg Road, Durbanville, is an easy drive for the Fabulous Flowers team, and set-up times are planned around the venue and the ceremony. See our wedding flowers page to start.

What is Loch Lynne Wine Estate like as a wedding venue?

Loch Lynne Wine Estate is a working wine farm on Koeberg Road in the Durbanville Wine Valley, on the slopes above Durbanville with views over the city lights. Its function venue has a black and white checkered floor, chandeliers and floor to ceiling glass doors. Carmen and Emilio held pre-drinks and a reception for 120 guests there on 10 February 2024, with white and green flowers by Fabulous Flowers.

Can church ceremony flowers be reused at the wedding reception?

Yes, church ceremony flowers can be reused at the reception, and it is one of the best ways to make wedding flowers go further. For Carmen and Emilio's wedding in February 2024, four to six church arrangements were planned to move from Parow to Loch Lynne for the welcome sign and the doors. Build them on flat containers so they can be lifted whole, and allow time between the ceremony and the arrival of guests.

What flowers work for a white and green wedding?

White roses are the backbone of a white and green wedding, as they were in every bouquet at Carmen and Emilio's Loch Lynne wedding in February 2024. Depending on the season, white lisianthus, hydrangeas and white peonies add softness and volume. Generous greenery is the secret: leaves give white flowers shape, shadow and movement, so they never look flat.

What wedding flowers are in season in February in Cape Town?

February is high summer in Cape Town and the Western Cape, a good month for hydrangeas, lisianthus and sunflowers, with roses available all year. Carmen and Emilio's Loch Lynne wedding on 10 February 2024 used white roses in every bouquet, with white dahlias, chrysanthemums and snapdragons at the welcome sign. Heat is the main thing to plan for, so choose flowers and greenery that hold up well out of water and ask your florist how the flowers will be kept cool.

How many flower arrangements do you need for a church wedding?

A church wedding needs fewer flower arrangements than most couples expect, as long as each piece has scale. For Carmen and Emilio's wedding on 10 February 2024 at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Parow, Carmen asked for six to eight, and Josie van Aswegen of Fabulous Flowers proposed six arrangements built up high on flat trays, with several planned to move on to the reception. The right number depends on the size of the church.

Do you do wedding flowers at other Durbanville wedding venues?

Yes, Fabulous Flowers does flowers for Durbanville wedding venues, as it did for Carmen and Emilio's reception for 120 guests at Loch Lynne Wine Estate on 10 February 2024. The team works from our Claremont studio, and Fabulous Flowers was founded in 1999. Fabulous Flowers travels to weddings anywhere in the Western Cape, and travel and accommodation for our team are quoted separately. Tell us your venue and your date on our event flowers enquiry and we will talk you through set-up, timing and what the season will offer.

Your wedding

Tell us about your day

If you love Carmen's white flowers with beautiful greenery amongst them, tell us about your church, your venue and the pieces you would like to see twice. We will plan the journey between them.

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