This time last year I was heading back to the UK for my brother’s wedding in the Lake District. A trip I’d been looking forward to for ages.
A few weeks before I flew, I saw a post from Jen at Liberty Lane about the GAIA x Keira Fleur Solstice Workshop happening in the Cotswolds.
I didn’t even hesitate. I changed my flight, booked a hire car, and added a few extra days. Sometimes you just know.
Day One: Back to Basics, But Make It Better
The very first thing we worked on was a natural trailing bouquet. No wires, no hidden scaffolding; just stems layered and placed. I’d wanted to try this for a long time. Wiring has its place, but if I’m honest, I’ve always felt it fights the flower a bit. This way of working let everything move in its own direction. Loose. Easy. Far more alive than I expected.
It was a good reminder that floristry doesn’t always need to be controlled. Sometimes getting out of your own way is the technique.
Next came a hand-tied bouquet and Keira’s approach here was refreshingly stripped back. No obsessing over the spiral. Just a natural build that paid attention to balance and movement. I kept waiting for the complicated bit and it never came.
That was the point.
Day Two: Table Design, Korean-Inspired, and Rethinking Everything
I’ve always approached table designs on instinct, but Keira’s way of working slowed me right down. There was something really thoughtful in how she spoke about flowers and space – it made me pay closer attention.
We started with Korean-inspired centerpieces, which was completely new for me. The idea of using fewer flowers but letting them breathe, giving each one space to shine, felt so different from how I’d normally build a table. We used chicken wire, moss and ikebana frogs for the mechanics, which I’ve always done instead of floral foam (aka Oasis), but this time it was about how those simple tools could create more openness, movement and life.
By the end of the day those small studies had grown into layered tablescapes using GAIA vessels. What stayed with me wasn’t the mechanics though. It was the shift from thinking in terms of structure to thinking in terms of energy and space. Which sounds a bit airy-fairy until you’re actually standing in front of a table that does it and you feel the difference immediately.
Day Three: Scale, Restraint, and What Boldness Actually Means
The final day was big. Physically and creatively. We built large-scale installations; an arch, a window. The kind of work that fills a room.
But what I kept coming back to was Keira’s restraint. Her work isn’t bold because of excess. It’s bold because every single flower is there for a reason. There’s a kind of discipline in that which I find genuinely hard to articulate, but you feel it immediately when you’re in the room with it.
I thought a lot about my own weddings during this day. The balance I’m always chasing between romance and scale, drama and softness. I came away with a clearer sense of where I want to push things; bolder, yes, but more intentional. Not louder.
What I Actually Brought Home
I have a ceramic GAIA vessel sitting in my studio as I write this. I’m very attached to it and will not be taking questions!
But more than that: I came home with a genuine recommitment to this work. It is easy, in the busyness of running a full-time business, to lose track of your own creative voice. To design for everyone else so consistently that you forget what your instincts actually are. Three days in an old barn in the Cotswolds, with florists from all over the world, was a good corrective.
I’m not finished learning. I don’t think I ever will be. And I’ve decided that’s not a gap, it’s the best part of the job.
The Bit That Made It More Than Just a Workshop
Changing my flight also meant I got to see some of my favourite people.
Donna of Pheasant Botanica, who flowered practically every wedding I planned in the UK between 2015 and 2019; we built a lot of beautiful things together during those years and I have so much love for her and her work. Liz from Blue Sky Flowers, who has been a mentor, a peer, and a friend. And Lauradana from Wedding Creations, who styled my own wedding (yes, really) and has, like me, folded floral design into a broader offering, which I find quietly reassuring, as evidence that this is not a mad thing to do.
Getting to be in the same room as people who knew your work before you knew what you were doing with it is a particular kind of good.
These are the relationships that remind you where you came from and, weirdly, help clarify where you’re going.
With so much thanks to:
• Lecturer @keirafleur
• Workshop hosts @gaiavessels @libertylaneflowers
Vendors
Photography @chloeelyphotography
Venue @hill_barn
Catering @miss.ingredient
Tableware @duchessbutler
Furniture @chippingnortoneventhire
