(Baltimore, MD) -- AIFD designers Karen Lamb and Nina Sherson collected gold medals for their respective works at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show recently held in London May 21-24.

Nina Sherson’s winning designs at the 2002 Chelsea Flower Show.

Karen Lamb AIFD, who owns Flowers by Karen in Guisely, England, conjured up the image of a Zulu wedding complete with bright colored wraps, headdresses, singing, and mock fighting.

Lamb, who presented “English Wave of Roses,” at AIFD’s 2002 National Symposium, was given the design brief to come up with floral designs based on the theme of a wedding. Rather than focusing on the traditional English wedding Lamb decided to come up with something completely different.

“The traditional English wedding would be in church with pew end displays, but we didn’t want to do that at all. The idea was to get the judges’ immediate attention and then it’s judged on the workmanship and design,” Lamb said.

Lamb opted for the Zulu ceremony, known as an indwendwe, because flowers play such an important role. She imported a selection of blooms direct from Africa including anthuriums, artichokes, craspedia, and proteas.

“We went for very rich and earthy colors,” she said. “This stood out from the normal pastels and whites of an English wedding.”

Nina Sherson AIFD, NZPFA, FDSF, FSF, also won a gold medal with help from Jo Jarvis AIFD. Like Lamb, Sherson also took a different approach to the show’s wedding theme by designing a Romantic Wedding display. Sherson, of Earthworks International Designers in London, overcame the bad omen of having stand number 13 to win the award.

Competing in their final Chelsea Flower Show, Jarvis said, “This year’s Chelsea has been the easiest that we have ever done, in that there were no arguments, tears, or do you know how much that prop is going to cost.”

As you can see from the picture above Sherson created a bridal curtain, grooms buttonhole, wedding bouquet, Carmen rose (for the mother of the bride to carry), buffet arrangement and table arrangement.

AIFD would like to congratulate and thank Lamb and Sherson for representing us so well at Chelsea.