As the year draws to a close, we look back at what has been another busy and successful year on the farm. Like many businesses, we have faced our trials and tribulations, with a tough harvest due to the extremely hot temperatures and making the difficult decision to postpone Shropshire Petal Fields until 2023. However, we weathered the storm and as always, our amazing team worked extremely hard to make lots of epic things happen this year!
Here's a little snippet of 2022 on the Shropshire Petals Farm.
The Shropshire Petals Team
Award Winning
If you've been on this journey with us from the start you will know that we take our customer service very seriously. With the team always striving to go above and beyond for all our wonderful customers, so to find out that we were awarded the Feefo Platinium Trusted Service Award 2022 for the second year running (as voted by you!) in January was a blooming brilliant start to the year.
We're constantly listening to your feedback and improving our service and developing our products to make sure they are the best they can be.
In early December we found out that Shropshire Petals have been have been shortlisted as a finalist in the Best Sustainable Swap category at the Sustainable Wedding Awards (how exciting!). The results are out at end of January 2023, so we have our fingers and toes firmly crossed. Wish us luck!
As Seen In..
We've had some cracking features this year, from 'Where to buy dried flower bouquets and wreaths' in House Beautiful to '5 Top Tips to Capture the Perfect Confetti Moment' in Wedding and Honeymoons Magazine, we even made it to Germany with a beautiful styled shoot being featured in BRAUT Magazine.
Ashley did a wonderful job discussing the effects of the prolonged hot weather in August on a BBC News special and Shropshire Petal Fields made the front cover of the prestigious Shropshire Magazine, a well-known lifestyle title for the county. Who knows were you will spot us in 2023!
Megan on the front cover of Shropshire Magazine
Florrie the Robot
We had an exciting new member join the SP team, Florrie the robot, named after one of our lovely Instagram followers grandmother. Not only does she plant our beautiful flowers, but also weeds around them too! It's a world first for our delphiniums.
She has also helped when it comes to reducing CO2 emissions, too, as there's no need for a tractor so no need for fuel. Plus, her lighter weight body is better for our soil, and reduces the risk of compaction. Which the worms will love us for!
Florrie is already a local celeb, hitting the big screen in June alongside Ashley and Jim for a BBC Midlands news special with David Gregory. We're excited to see what 2023 has in store for Florrie; she may even have some robot friends joining her – watch this space.
Florrie the robot hard at work
A Tough but Successful Harvest
Laura took on her new role as Operations Manager like a duck to water, and smashed her first harvest out of the park. Despite the various challenges Laura and the harvest team faced this year, we had our biggest petal harvest to date – such an amazing achievement!
Laura inspecting the crop
Here's what she had to say about 2022's Harvest…
''This harvest we saw a very dry Spring and extremely hot days during Summer; while the idea of a hot summer sounds great, it massively impacted our fields and crops.
We are fortunate that we run two production fields so we were still able to harvest our gorgeous petals for our lovely customers. Our biggest petal harvest to date was only achievable with the help of our incredible seasonal workers and all their hard work picking the flowers by hand come rain or shine, (definitely more shine this year!). It is always a group effort during harvest and we are very lucky to have a great team at SP always willing to pitch in! I even spied the dispatch team helping hand weed our dried flowers this year (great work guys!).
Next year we are hoping to have an even bigger flower harvest and we can't wait to see those fields in bloom again!''
We can't tell you how excited we are for Summer 2023 already, our fields really are a dream in the summer months and to see all the bees, butterflies and wildlife thoroughly enjoying them warms our hearts.
Who We Worked With
We are very fortunate to work with so many amazing people year in and year out (too many to name, but you know who you are), from styled shoots with top notch suppliers, collabs with wedding directory friends, to all the wonderful wedding venues singing our praises and promoting our Shropshire grown confetti. You all inspire us and we're very grateful to work alongside you.
Styled shoot at Botley Hill Barn with J Door Photography
This year also saw us collaborate with lots of influential businesses like, Susie Watson Designs, Denby Pottery, The Colourful Garden Company, Monty Bojangles and many more to bring you some amazing giveaways on our social platforms. Keep your eyes peeled for 2023, we have some crackers up our sleeve.
Collaboration with Denby Pottery
It was also lovely to be part of TikTok star Olivia Dewars special day in August. Olivia made her own DIY sachets and filled them with our Enchanted Woods mix, which was the perfect match for her beautiful colour scheme. Her Country Living also included our personalised Woodland design sachets in her imitate day in October. Lucy had her loved ones sprinkle them in our Berries and Cherries mix, creating some memorable shots.
The National Wedding Show
This year wedding show schedules returned to normal, meaning we got to attend The National Wedding Show at the NEC in Spring, Summer and Autumn! We had an absolute blast and really look forward to these events as it's brilliant to meet all the nearlyweds, spread the love for biodegradable petal confetti, discuss wedding trends, gorgeous colours schemes and help couples create bespoke confetti mixes!
We have already booked The National Wedding Show for March 2023 at the NEC, Birmingham. So, if you are planning on attending, make sure to come by and say hello and most importantly, pick up your free confetti samples.
Shropshire Petals at The National Wedding Show, NEC Birmingham
All the Confetti
You asked, we listened. We had a lot of couples asking us about a sage green petal to match their botanical and neutral wedding themes, especially at the wedding shows, so we worked hard in the petal shed and brought to you a brand-new petal, or should we say leaf ,in September. Our new eucalyptus leaf has been an absolute hit and the dispatch girls have loved making up all your fabulous orders.
Some of the most popular confetti mixes we've packed up for you for you in 2022 have been Blush, Icing Sugar, Enchanted Woods, Pink Lemonade, Summer Nights, Tutti Fruity, Kaleidoscope and Berries and Cherries.
Blush Confetti Mix
We've seen a huge increase this year in couples creating bespoke Pick & Mix confetti mixes made of delphiniums, wildflowers, roses, hydrangeas petals and, new eucalyptus leaf. We can see this continuing into the new year as a big trend for 2023 is couples creating their own unique colour palette, creating something as original as they are to celebrate their big day.
We're predicting a continued trend for neutral and earth greens for 2023 wedding colour schemes. However, we are seeing an emerging split with the use of bright and bold colour palettes, couples choosing rich statement confetti mixes for a vibrant splash of colour and a way of reflecting their own personality too.
Seeing our natural petal confetti sprinkled with love and filling the air at weddings all over the world is the best feeling. We love it when you take the time to share these wonderful moments with us- keep your confetti shots coming!
Farewell Rose
We said our goodbyes this month to the lovely Rose, a brilliant General Manager, resident Mary Berry, and all-round good friend. It's been emotional, to say the least.
Rose and her husband are relocating back home to the Cotswolds to build their dream home and we couldn't be more excited for them. We did try to twist her arm to do the commute each day, but think we may have been asking a lot.
She will be sorely missed by everyone and not just for her amazing cakes and chutneys.
The Lovely Rose
Our Team is Growing
The start of 2022 saw us welcome two lovely new faces, Emilie to Customer Service and Neringa to our accounts department.
In the last few months, we have had our fabulous new General Manager Ruth join us; the marketing team are excited to have Mitchell on board as Marketplace Executive and the accounts team have welcomed the wonderful Rachel. They have all fitted in so well already; we really couldn't ask for a nicer bunch!
The great news is the team is continuing to grow, so if you fancy a new challenge in 2023, go and peruse our Careers page, we'd love to hear from you.
Laura, Emma and Amanda
Shropshire Petals Fields Is Coming in 2023
To say we were devastated that Shropshire Petal Fields didn't go ahead this year was an understatement; there were definitely a few tears shed. For those of you who aren't aware, we had to cancel the flower field experience this year as we had issues with the crop in that particular field, and the extreme heat in the summer months didn't help. We learned from this journey and are beyond excited to be launching in 2023.
All the hard work this year was not it vain, it will show next year when the experience is even bigger and better – we can't wait for you to visit! Our beautiful flower field near Newport, Shropshire will be open daily in August 2023; the dates will be released closer to the time, so make sure to join the mailing list.
Photoshoot in the Flower Field with Hannah Ray Photography
Explore the best nature has to offer, pack a picnic and most importantly, don't forget your camera to capture memories that will last a lifetime. For a behind the scenes access to the flower field follow Shropshire Petal Fields Facebook or Instagram pages.
Here's to an Amazing 2023
2023 brings with it lots of exciting plans, events and product launches that we can't wait to share with you.
Roll on more special confetti moments and dried flowers masterpieces!
Wishing you all a very Happy New Year, see you in 2023!
Love from everyone at SP Xx
