Image Credit: Emily Cormack
Hi, I’m Victoria, the founder of Soonhope Studio.
Soonhope grew from a lifelong connection to gardens. I grew up surrounded by beautiful gardens kept by my parents and grandparents. My grandparents were always pottering about their garden when we visited, planting, cutting, pruning, and creating colourful displays.
My parents’ garden is mature and full of foliage, surrounded by woodland and fields, and near to the sea. As a child there, I always wished for more colour, but it taught me to notice texture, structure and the way plants sit naturally in a landscape. That way of looking at things still influences my designs now; I love using botanicals, raw materials like wood, stones or other natural objects in my designs to reflect what we see around us here in Scotland.
Today, I’m lucky to live in a home with an old and established garden, designed with a lot of thought and care to change through the seasons. The majority of the flowers I work with are sourced from our family gardens. This year I am also over the moon to be sharing a micro flower farm with Holly Grows in Peeblesshire. Alongside all that, I love working with flowers and botanicals grown by local flower growers in the Lothians and Fife whose work, battling through the Scottish climate, I admire hugely.
The moment I began to think about floral design came while styling my own barn wedding. It was a winter wedding, which meant working with a very limited palette of seasonal materials. That experience made me realise how much I enjoy thinking about flowers as part of a wider setting. Venues, interiors, light, architecture and surrounding landscape all play a role. Flowers, for me, are never just arrangements on a table but part of the overall composition and atmosphere of a place or event.
I trained in sustainable floristry with the wonderful Days of Dahlia, building my knowledge of design and growing techniques which are plastic and chemical free. The training also helped me understand and articulate my style within the Scottish floral design community. With my style, seasonality is a given and dried materials a must in the sparser months. Beyond this, I love irregular shapes, negative space, flow, and pieces which are a little unexpected.
Image Credit: Joanne Clenaghan
I’m now based in Edinburgh and also spend much of my time around St Andrews where family are based. I design for weddings, gatherings and spaces across Scotland where atmosphere matters, helping to bring the outside in. If this sounds like the right fit for you, get in touch today.
