For Sirina.

This is long, long overdue. A special mention for a client who celebrated a milestone birthday at the wonderful Hotel du Vin in Brighton.

She had booked the wonderfully atmospheric Ruinart room and had invited a carefully curated set of special people to attend the birthday bash. When we intially met to discuss her vision for the evening, I immediately got excited by her creative ideas.

Her inspiration came from a love of Nature, walking, being outdoors, solitude and the quiet contemplative side of being with alone but not lonely, yet bringing trusted life companions together to celebrate a special day. The decorations we provided were far from the normal glitzy and showy flowers and were such a treat to put together. 

The birch trees were deliberately too tall for the room to force them to bend in and over the table to create an enchanted forest of trees threaded with pealights for extra twinkling atmosphere. The potted ivy, ferns, cyclamen and frittelaria were buried in amongst the fallen leaves to look as though they were growing straight out of the table. No flowers were requested, just anything naturalistic, ferny and anything that looks as though it belonged there. The long table was punctuated with wrought iron candelabra which brought extra drama for the evening party. There was the addition of tall ficus trees placed around the room to soften.

This client has since become a very special friend to me, one whose company I look forward to each time we get together for her kookiness, wise words and complicated simplicity. Happy very belated birthday Sirina!