A FLORIST from Dorchester is celebrating being blooming brilliant after winning a prestigious national award for her flower arranging skills.
Jessie Copper runs West Dorset Wedding Flowers in Dorchester and has been entering The Wedding Industry Awards (TWIA) since they began in 2014.
In 2014 Jessie was Nationally Highly Commended by TWIA and has been a Regional South West Finalist for best florist every year since. The Regional Finals include all entries from across Dorset, Devon, Cornwall, Somerset, West Hampshire, Avon, Gloucester and South Wales.
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This year she went even further by winning the national award.
Jessie Copper runs West Dorset Wedding Flowers in Dorchester
Jessie said: “I was really chuffed! I have got to regional finals quite a few times and have been entering every year – it is really lovely to have won the national award.
“It is just brilliant that they still ran the awards and support all the hard hard work that is done in the wedding industry.
The wedding industry has been hit hard by the pandemic this year as many people were forced to downscale their ceremonies and celebrations and reduce guest numbers to comply with Covid restrictions – with many couples choosing to postpone or cancel their weddings.
Jessie said: “Generally most people that had a wedding planned postponed it. It was really sad to see people have to postpone their weddings so many times. There is so much uncertainty and it can be so stressful for people trying to arrange a date.
However Jessie is happy to see restrictions finally easing and said that she is already fully booked for the summer.
She said: “This year’s weddings have been brilliant so far.”
Jessie was previously the founder and head florist of The Poundbury Florist from 2006 to 2015 and won the UK Flower Shop of the Year award.
Due to Covid restrictions, this year’s national awards were held digitally, meaning that there was no grand award ceremony in London as per other year’s. However, having recently given birth to a newborn lockdown baby at the time of the finals, Jessie said she was happy to enjoy the awards from the comfort of her sofa this time round.
