Samantha Conolly, joint owner of Greensleeves florists – which has shops in Reigate, Redhill and Cheam – had a busy week last week playing her part in the royal wedding spectacular.
Samantha was asked to supply boxes of flowers for Media Structures Ltd of Croydon for the media stand outside Westminster Abbey and the temporary studios built outside Buckingham palace for the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
The order was only confirmed in the late evening of Thursday 21 April – just before the four-day bank holiday weekend – so Greensleeves could not place their plant orders until Tuesday morning, despite the order needing to be delivered to London by Wednesday morning. A hectic two days ensued.
Planters From Stewart Planters in Croydon were picked up Tuesday morning, brought back to Reigate and painted in the specified colour in a borrowed church hall. The plants were delivered at 12pm by Sussex nursery Rush Lake Green and included trailing ivy, marguerites, geraniums, gardenia and lavender.
Samantha said she and her staff were working till well after midnight, but had to be up at 5.30am to finish the job so everything could be collected and driven to Westminster. Samantha went with them. Meanwhile, back in the shop, the staff started working on hand-tied bouquets for the world’s TV channels featuring white and green English country garden flowers.
On Thursday morning they were back in London to deliver bouquets and water all the plants.
Samantha said: “It’s just a little addition to the royal day but was seen by two billion people. All the plants were used after so there was no waste, all in keeping with the royal ethos!”
