Foraging with ANNA HOLMES at Chateau Lagorce - French weddings !

[Music] hello everyone i hope you are well i am vlogging from uh south of france today well not really well in coastal bordeaux i am in bordeaux i'm at chateau lagos together with stephanie philip and matty we've been invited here to stay with anna and ed who has this beautiful chateau and a gorgeous garden there's so many beautiful roses here obviously i've been constantly looking at all the beautiful flowers here there is so many beautiful roses and greenery even in the hedge groves there are prettier flowers than at lalonde so i i'm so excited to be here and to get to know anna and ed a bit more i have been admiring anna and ed's work here at the chateau they do destination weddings and anna is also a florist uh alongside being a wedding planner so i'm very excited to pick a brain and to hear her story because i one day want to do the same and i think there's so much i can learn from anna and yeah just to hear about her story how she got here how she got into floristry and so i'm very excited to just be here and learn about the chateau and their journey so yeah i'm very excited to be here we're gonna stay here for a few days and i'll be showing you around and hopefully i'll be doing some flowers as well um so yeah i'm definitely very excited to be here i'm only going to be here until thursday because on friday i'm going to london because i have bought a car i know i can't believe it i have bought a car and i'm going to pick it up well i'm going to london to quarantine for five or ten days and then i'm gonna pick up the car and then i'm gonna drive back to la land so that i can be at la land for the rest of the summer so yeah i'm very excited so many things are happening we're just going to one place and then another and um it's all happening so quickly um but yeah i really need to get the car here before the rush of the bnb starts and we get too busy and i won't be able to pick up the car um so yeah i'm so excited so grateful i will tell you more about the car later now i'm going to go downstairs and get some coffee and hopefully some breakfast before i'm going to spend some time in the garden with anna so this is my bedroom beautiful i love the wallpaper and the fabric matching it's so pretty and the bed is very comfy as well and i sort of like the contrast with the dark furniture and the light white room and the view is probably the best thing about this room look at this wow can be more prettier looking over the little lake that is so pretty i'm so happy to be here so i've had my breakfast now um got a coffee and i'm gonna go and get my scissors because i'm gonna go and go out in the garden so i got my scissor because we're gonna go and pick a few flowers pumps with anna and i just wanted to show you this beautiful rose tree have you seen anything more beautiful [Music] that is so amazing it's like a painting i'm so jealous [Laughter] and they just sit there so beautifully i'm definitely going to take a few photos here later and i got some iris here look at that it's just been raining so it looks a bit wet but it's just the most romantic places i've ever seen for a long time and as usual i always have my fiskes with me wherever i go hello hi good morning good morning nice to see you sorry guys i'm going to give mary a kiss okay it's so lovely to be here with you your chateau is absolutely beautiful oh it's so romantic i feel so in love with this beauty of greens and flowers you have so many flowers already we're very lucky because when so the chateau eats ed's family yeah and that both the place twenty i'm gonna say 21 years ago yeah give or and they planted lots of flowers and roses yeah and we're still planting even today i love that and the wisteria you have over here oh my and we're trying to get you to i mean we've had a really good trim this year yeah but i can't wait to go and have a little look in the garden and see what you have here because you are not just a wedding planner you are also inviting florist that's amazing it's so nice to see a you know a fellow florist i love your bouquets because it's very like it's like boho we'll be in heaven amazing well let's go [Laughter] should we go down uh here or where i'll be following you oh no it does the trick i've got loads of those as well it's so beautiful and so tidy how old is the chateau so the chateau is 15th century yeah and there's parts of it that are even older there's a tower from uh roman times pretty much yeah but the main structure is 15 wow goodness and we're always doing work because of course you know that you never stop never stops absolutely do you do quite a lot of the work yourself or yes yeah we we do do quite a lot of the work ourselves like we have to learn to well obviously painting yeah yeah plastering and varnishing floors and uh obvious gardening which i didn't always use i think it was a love or hate relationship exactly that's how i feel about it i like to pick them yes and i understand i have to do some effort towards it but yeah i'm very happy we have done the gardener at la land are [Laughter] you probably do need some help don't you yeah so we have another gardener at some stage yeah another gardener another wedding planner another florist who is a little thank you so this is the rosemary oh my goodness mom and sister planted oh my goodness and it's well it's perfect it's like you can always use a little sprig of it okay or both in the hole i love it absolutely i love it in the buttonhole too because of the different colors when you turn them up and down they are darker on their side yeah it's so pretty and look at this view and you've got some pink flowers on the side here is that the red valerian oh i think i'm not gonna lie to you yeah and we could we could cut some of these i see them in the hedge grow as well try not to cut too many of the roses because we want the place with that to look beautiful they're almost falling off yeah yeah yeah but you want flowers for your wedding because to be very open and sort of fully developed yeah yes because you don't want them to be too close then no and there's you know all the tricks turn them upside down because i mean hot water oh look at this beauty usually my back pocket there's always scissors so what i do is i just come around like i'll be doing something doing a bit of gardening oh look at this beautiful rose wow that's this is it smells as well wow and this one is even in uh november december it's still in flower oh wow it's only pretty much january and february that it's not flowering but all the time always gets the sun first thing in the morning oh wow shall we pick some of these why not why not me too yeah me too me too goodness me so this is a good time for me to ask you how did you get into weddings so uh weddings i i think i always loved meeting people and exchanging yeah so at the start it was ed that was doing weddings here yeah and i was uh i was studying law yeah studying law yeah wow and then eventually i saw it and i i love the fact that you you get to meet people yeah you help them arrange their wedding yeah it's something different yeah so and you meet people from all over the world yeah i love that wow and did you already start doing floral florals for the weddings early uh in the beginning or so not at the beginning because i i don't like to i i want everything to be perfect yeah i was worried we had the wedding back in 2011 september jenny and dan [Laughter] and i love the flowers yeah and jenny brought her own florist from the uk because we at the time we were working with someone else yeah and it wasn't what she wanted yeah and you have to be able to understand what people want yeah not everyone wants the same thing no no and i think also in different parts in france i find that the floristry is a bit traditional here depending on the couple but you can't always impose the same thing to everyone no offend up to the couple yeah the couple to you yes exactly so it's hard because i've um had a bride which i've got a wedding in the lora valley in the summer yeah and she said that she had such a hard time finding any flowers that would create what she wanted and obviously everyone has a different preference and i think the younger brides maybe maybe perhaps want the more natural wild hand-picked or boho style and you can't get that everywhere no no you have to and you have to love it in order to if you don't love something you can't do that no so i'm so happy that you but what made you did you see like a demand like did you see that i saw the angle of the bride yeah and i was in the middle because i was translating everything yeah and i thought of everything now being exactly how the bride wanted i was like oh i have to be the middleman yeah but then i also love flowers yeah jenny came actually anna i will show you how to do bouquet yeah i'll show you how to do brotherhood oh wow oh wow that's amazing after that was it and every time i have a question i'd go like yeah how do you think and then she's like okay okay take your time yeah because then after my third bouquet was a teardrop one oh my goodness pregnant oh yes [Laughter] so i did a massive it wasn't it was just like okay yeah yeah and then i loved it oh my god that's so amazing that was eight years ago wow so you've been doing it for quite a long time then oh my goodness do you love it do you like it yeah i love it it's i think that being with being with flowers and being able to express yourself and to say right what do you like show me your photo yeah yours will be unique because it's gonna be your own yeah yeah no one else will have it that's and [Laughter] yeah but flowers makes people happy they do it and it's so rewarding to work with flowers because i've like they say that gardeners live very long because they are in nature they're close to plants and i think that's the same goes for florists we work with flowers fresh things from nature and it makes me feel and especially me very happy so yeah i'm so with you there we obviously have our favorite variety of things of course yeah never white contradiction yeah like you can have the avalanche it's almost cream yeah you have to go for a different variety yeah yeah some are a bit green amazing amazing oh thank you for talking i love i love picking your brain [Laughter] eucalyptus i love it because it can be green but it can also be a bit silvery i know pinterest got it i know the colors they all like photoshop yeah it's not easy as long as you have a very open communication with the brides and just ask them to give them all the information that they have and try to get an idea i think it's okay but yeah it's a learning process isn't it yeah yeah and it's just it's so the fact that you can just create something yeah someone and for them to be like oh anna we want to replicate it or yeah this is the best flowers i've ever seen yeah but there's no better no there's no better especially on when they're happy on their wedding day [Laughter] yeah exactly exactly and to make them feel beautiful that that's sort of the top of the iceberg i guess oh well i'm sorry i was distracting you [Laughter] oh well be careful wow look at that because these they're gonna look beautiful that's so beautiful this one as goodness go past the little fountain and onto the lake side oh wow exciting right what we got here some cats fly yes all right and then they would look really cute yes i love these quirky white flowers maybe we cut some of these and then hopefully that's just gonna have a little touch oh wow look at that do you also peel off for some of them yeah yeah well yeah i like to do that while i pick so i don't have to do it later yeah it's never ending no there's always so much to do and then once you get them all you just want to put it together i know so if we do it yeah i think what i love when i'm like depending what flowers you're working on yeah you get the smell yeah i just smell it that way yeah there's so many here i guess these are planted at some point yes yeah they were it must have been i mean because we do try and put like some wild flowers around yeah and i have some seeds so i need to see that's nice i find when you mix bought flowers with flowers from the garden or around you you get this beautiful hand-picked look that i like so much and it makes it i mean when you're trying to do bouquet i can just like imagine like yeah together like what it will look like yes it's one of the perks it's so exciting there's so much of it too what is this it's already looking beautiful i'm so happy to be here finally every time i'm like so exciting so um where do you work when um you uh do wedding flowers do you have a little studio or something where in summer when i do wedding flowers i do have my own little area yeah now it's full of things [Laughter] but i think i'm gonna try and get it all nice and tight oh okay then you have my only like 16 degrees yeah outside yeah it's a good thing with living in a chateau because that's just amazing yeah yeah we're gonna try and get a little bit ready but yeah it is full of things because we tried to yeah yeah for you guys i think it it's so beautiful here so oh wow so when you do wedding flowers um how long do you start before preparing for a wedding we've had weddings that i usually start two days before yeah and we've had a few weddings where i started four days before yes there was so much work to do so i tried not to like i could greener you can do five six days yeah yeah but the flower part it has to be perfect yeah not too early not too late because they have to be closed yeah after you can open them up but it's just yeah the good balance yeah because you don't want them to put uh we could put them in a fridge but like you have to like six to eight degrees yeah you can't go below because they will freeze it's happened yeah luckily but also you have so much do you do other things on a wedding day as well because obviously you do the flowers but you're also the wedding planner so how does that work and the coordinator i i like i think i start with coffee it's coffee all day coffee yeah we know coffee will eat oh okay right it's a wedding yeah well you have helpers around doing the wedding with you don't you i do and ed is [Laughter] it's tricky because i think i remember just even last minute like going down checking to the ceremony area yeah coming back up the stretch going in the brush oh my goodness back down to the flower that's good exercise huh it's elderflower isn't it yes yeah the only thing let's shake it a bit wow it's so beautiful we could use some of it yeah we're good we just find flowers everywhere it's just every time i mean i love the smell but we need to make sure it's not going everywhere yeah but this is like a filler or yeah it's perfect perfect wow well you have so much abundance with foliage and and greenery here so if you ever wanted to do a large scale installation like an arch or something like that you can just pick it here like you don't have to order heavier foliage to do that no no and we because usually because i i love mine i love i love eucalyptus but then ivy we're very lucky to have loads of it yeah yeah so i try to like i'm telling i don't like especially the trailing one yeah don't cut it off i need it exactly you know i showed them the price of ivy yeah how much it costs just why it's like okay i won't kill it all okay i keep asking dan not to cut down the wildflowers at the land but he does leave some for me but he did cut down all the lilacs last year you should be punished no he's doing a great job he's um because like sometimes you'll have the flowers but then you want the wall to be nice and yeah yeah yeah yeah should we get some nicely yeah why not wow this is such a beautiful area oh thank you so much i love the lake here oh look at this [Laughter] you're just like me i like i'll just like sorry uh when we go for walks people like will walk away from me or just not wait for me because i constantly stop all yeah maybe i'll check out a little bit of ivy oh wow here you got the ivy yeah all over there the walls had a lot of it yeah eventually now it's on a little bit amazing look at that and i love the little ones yeah look at this amazing so we have wow this is so beautiful i mean you could have a little trim wow a very small tree a very small trim nobody oh my goodness it's sort of the pale silver green on the other side and then it's just so pretty yeah it's so pretty you're so lucky to have all of this in your garden well it's about like the advantage of having a shadow wow it's so pretty definitely like this oh and it starts raining as well of course yeah of course we need some rain yeah if we go all the way up to the stairs we'll we'll be stoking oh run into the pool shed yeah why not there's always have you found a flower baby i found a flower baby which we can use i think that's a california wild rose it's so beautiful look at that color i'm so excited and if i was it's like yellow inside yeah beautiful wow love it that was a good there was there was a reason to come all this way yeah we've gone all the way up here and down there is the willow tree so had a little walk we didn't get rained on too much no no okay oh look at that that's so pretty you need to get some of those yeah i woke up i love grass like oh mary will love yes i definitely will i definitely will oh wow in the end i think we're doing quite well yeah we're doing very well i think you got quite a lot to work with now i can't wait to see what you're going to put together yeah yeah this is nice and this will go together absolutely because that's the thing we always have to make sure it goes together it doesn't crack no but i find that when you pick every like you can go out and pick and source out flowers and go to the market and get what you want and then when you have them i usually put the flowers in different buckets on the floor and then i sort of put them sort of close to each other and then i can slightly see how they'll go together but i find that i never know exactly if they're going to go together or not before i see them close together and then that's when they yeah yeah that makes sense it's either you don't know what will look best yeah like there's been times i've made the whole bouquet and then no i don't like it again yeah but that's like oh yes this is better i don't know it was good yeah but the thing about wedding flower wedding bouquets especially is that it's so like usually that some of the flowers are quite delicate and i find that you should you spend quite a lot of time and effort planning and then doing the wedding bouquet and then if you do have to do it again then it takes yeah and you don't want it to suffer too much without water and all of that because you wanted to be fresh for the wedding day so um i think we're under time pressure with florists yeah because you never i mean you want to make sure obviously it's perfect so sometimes i'll be making it not attaching it and then just send a quick photo to the yeah to the bride like do you like it yeah and obviously if she sends a hat then i just tied and i cut it and yeah in the vase yeah and then just to make because you know yeah no you don't want to oh i had the bride she asked for um she had it was white and pink and she wanted purple irises okay but so i did it i took it to her yeah because it was what you wanted but then it wasn't what you wanted no okay yeah i remember saying do you want me to take them out yeah yes yeah so yeah then obviously i tricked them out but i had the order because you have to order a certain amount yeah and then they were never used no oh what a shame but she was happy yeah exactly okay that's what happens and sometimes um brides they do like these colors and that texture and then that specific flower that they love and they want to incorporate and sometimes that works and sometimes [Laughter] yeah there's nothing we just have to yeah yeah and make sure absolutely absolutely i think we're doing quite well here i think so too so i'm embracing the metal i'm doing i'm taking one for the team because i've got long jeans on and i actually don't mind nettle that much uh one time when i was a kid i fell down in a ocean of metal burn my whole skin oh my god so i feel after that i'm a bit more oh my robust i'm so proud of you because i was scared i was like oh look and then i was like no i can't go and then you saved me wow those are beautiful mary look at that i love it i love it i love that wow look at this so my you know the name for this beautiful flower so they are related to the catcher fly um so we call them catch fly uh or oh that amazing beautiful i love the name look it's so poetic yeah it's so beautiful oh this is oh my goodness amazing do you want a couple more yes now that you're in there i know so many wow just a bit more and then but they are beautiful we can always come back yeah oh yeah definitely well it's okay look at all of these wow that is stunning i i'm so proud of you so brave i i'll do a lot for flowers when you love something have you got enough of that i think we definitely have enough because we have these ones here and we can always worst case yeah we can come on an expedition and get somebody we know where they are exactly what have you found here so we have barley oh yeah yeah they're beautiful oh it's so pretty paintbrush i mean look at this he's speaking to my flower heart now [Laughter] and i'm beautiful yeah this is veg straw i think um really quirky they're a bit delicate lovely filler flowers i think yeah we can get a little bit because they're very i mean they're beautiful but they're a bit different wow they look really sweet like in a buttonhole yeah a flower crown yeah oh sauerkraut can't wait to make one forever yeah oh and then she holds it actually because that's the trick she tends to destroy them destroy the flower crowns unheard of how old is she well she's allowed to do whatever she wants with them these are beautiful yeah are so pretty you have so much beautiful wildflowers in your garden honestly the wedding flowers they're meant to be beautiful so i'm always trying to plant more like hopefully this year i'm trying for some uh white and pink sprayers yeah and then i'm trying for uh not love what i i think it was like veronica yeah um it was cosmos yeah cosmos does well in heat and i think it's quite warm here isn't it yeah yeah well cosmos is great good good having to think of what i can get just so it looks wild and yeah i tried with uh not what was it a steel i still i love estelle [Laughter] unfortunately it gets uh when they would literally get too hot i have to buy some more and plant again and then yeah but yeah i do love us i know so fluffy yeah oh my goodness that's beautiful wow i got this in the camping bulldogs yeah years ago and then i love it it's one of my favorite jokes are so beautiful wow i can't wait to see the finished result should i carry something [Laughter] those flowers suit you marie look at you i can just and you look beautiful with that arch oh yeah let's go yes it's so pretty but these are really good but look unless if we yeah yeah yeah they need water smells so amazing here it makes me so happy and to escape the rain as well we did and we managed it because i mean at some stage i was like oh my goodness we're gonna get drenched but no we the willow tree did protect us and we look at it now beautiful sunshine yeah just at the wrong time so um i am very curious on like how do you find um this last year since clovis had been i know it can be a bit touchy subject for many but i'm like curious to hear how you've been doing with you know being a wedding venue and you know making a living out of doing flowers and weddings and all of that so uh last year we are planning it was meant to be our best season today yeah sadly uh we we didn't like we had 10 of what we should have had so it was hardly anything and it was it was very hard i mean i struggled i still struggle to talk a lot about it yeah so i'm like i'm getting there and it's a it was a pandemic yeah things are getting better yeah i love flowers my love for flowers and weddings didn't change it's just the what was happening so now um i'm looking forward to what's coming and then we're doing things around the chateau to make it even better so when we start yeah it's going to be amazing amazing and also i think one thing that i've had that has been very positive with the pandemic like i'm an optimist so i always try to see the positive of things and for me when the pandemic hit and i was in very in suffolk last year i just thought oh my god i have all this time to do what i want and to improve to work on my portfolio yeah and you know just make sure that i can be better and just try to um educate myself and i don't know if you had some time to really just sharpen on your skills and just enjoy what's around you as well so we did because we have uh two kids we have charles that is six now and them are nearly two so i had uh we have the kids pretty much all the time yeah i mean charles goes to school now and then i start well we started to show people more what we do so we did the youtube channel yeah oh yeah live yes hi and then we did lots of work so there's us coming to help us with the flowers so we've been foraging around the ground that's nice thank you so yeah no so we in the end we just i thought like what's the best way to show people what the place is about and around the area than to pretty much do a youtube channel that shows what we do so what do you base your vlogs about is it everything like weddings grounds everyday life and so it's weddings not so much yet although a little bit of nature because i want to film fresh ones i don't want to use uh old weddings i want it to be like as real as possible so it's like a bit of renovation a bit of daily life here at the chateau what is around us maybe a bit of room set up and showing what we do and why yeah sorry i'm talking we're going on a um wine tasting later you have to it's part of the well um i've been to bordeaux before and we also had several wine tastings on that trip as well i can't wait i hope you like it we'll be getting somewhere we are all talking and no um actual work with our mouths we're actually doing we're cleaning flowers and talking at the same time yes i think soon we'll be able to start yes oh my goodness i absolutely love what we're going for here wow these are my favorites i think you saved the day it's so pretty like look at this i mean without i think you need everything yeah and can you see how beautiful it is and it's mostly foliage filler flowers there's no really focal flowers in there and it still looks so lush hand-picked and beautiful wow i do have a dancer i tend to do big bouquets i don't know how to i do small ones for a little like five years yeah but if it's like brighter bridesmaids i love big [Laughter] oh it's so beautiful and i love how you just layered all the flowers nice and neatly on the table the red valerian is really popping it's like yes and it's making i think it's like just the right amount and not too much not too little yeah and it's just oh my goodness i can imagine right [Laughter] no i guess we can uh move that away i guess that is beautiful [Music] that's my other favorite drug it's so pretty my goodness you're bronchumpt did you get that on a brookhand as well wow oh my goodness that's so beautiful wow there's so much flowers they're quite different but also hand-picked and uh yeah [Laughter] it's so beautiful so it's now the last day um before we leave tomorrow to go back to la land and i'm going to london on friday yes i'm going to london to quarantine there in steph's flat and then i'm going to pick up my car so it's all happening but before we go i have been wanting to pick some wild flowers around here because every time me and natty has been running around here i see that the hedge grows have these beautiful wildflowers and obviously i can't go before i make something with these wildflowers so i'm quite excited to see what i can find um yeah so um i guess kaggle alone there we go me and atti we rented a um a rental car obviously and it's been very good to drive it's an automatic um hybrid really smooth in case you were wondering if this was my car it's not but um yeah you can definitely spot it on the road because of the color so we are sort of on the out like we're very close to the chateau chateau lagos it's sort of um behind here somewhere and i'm gonna go along the side here to see if i can find something to pick it's a little bit wet and i don't have values with me so better be a bit careful i brought a um bucket of water with me you know me i love to keep my flowers hydrated and i went to into my say to just get some food for my journey and i found these roses which is like peachy and they're not so yellow as they are on this camera i must say and um yeah i thought maybe these could be nice with whatever i can find i got my scissor from visca and i've also got another pruner with me as well i found my first beauty in the hedge grow this is a garden valerian and it's so stunning i've seen it in pink and white and here and there but i haven't seen these close to land so i'm pretty happy pretty happy i'm definitely gonna get a few of those they are all over this sort of hedge grove here so um yeah plenty to go there we go managed to get you all on a tripod not bad not bad and look at this what a long stem you can't even fit it in a camera so nice really sturdy i'm going to take off all the leaves as usual then straight into the bucket for hydration right what else can we get whoa i'm definitely going to be wet definitely what i don't do for flowers huh got a little one more this is a bit smaller not us outsprung out sprung is that what you say in norway we say and look at what we have here beautiful red clover wow look at these and the stems seem to be really long there's quite a few of them very happy about that this is how we're looking so far i found some beautiful yellow irises they're called yellow iris or yellow flag i believe look at that wow that's so pretty [Music] got one another one let's get another one if we can and that's it okay see if i can get out of here one two three [Music] [Laughter] one thing that i've spotted while i've been running around here with nutty is something really beautiful it's a lamian or a spotted dead nettle i'll show you it but it's been it's so beautiful and it has this really long stem and this is how they look like look at that oh my we have these at la la but not so tall not so um fully blossomed they are so pretty and there's plenty uh that way so i'm pretty pretty happy pretty happy with this look at that wow wow wow wow i'm yeah i'm just just so happy right now clear the stem look at that stem look at that flower so pretty it's another one here this is even better it's got a few ants on it but that's okay goodness me wow so pretty so we're definitely getting there with the wildflower selection i'm gonna go and see if i can find some more of these and then i'm gonna go into the car [Music] you

Channel: Marie Wiik`s Diary

Views: 45,262

Keywords: chateau lagorce, chateau diaries, escape to the chateau, stephanie jarvis, chateau life, french chateau, bordeaux life, doing it ourselves, chateau diy, historic homes, michael petherick, destination wedding film, chateau lagorce wedding, destination wedding video, french country living, chateau wedding, bordeaux wedding, living in a french chateau, french chateau homes, chateau wedding france, chateau diaries wedding, destination wedding venues

Id: fATLenLMqm0

Length: 44min 39sec (2679 seconds)

Published: Thu May 20 2021