Beyonce tickled pink by Perthshire florist

Jul 15 2011 by Denis Brown, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

MEGASTAR Beyonce’s T in the Park dressing room was pretty in pink thanks to a Perthshire woman’s flower power.

Grandtully-based Emma Harvey, who runs Coach House Flowers, supplied 50 Asiatic pink lilies to enhance the R&B diva’s backstage Balado bolthole.

“Beyonce’s dressing room was predominantly pink, so we thought that pink flowers would be a perfect compliment,” she said.

“But we decided on Asiatic lilies because we didn’t know if she’d like the scent as in a small area with so many flowers, the smell can be quite overpowering.”

Originally from Killiecrankie, the florist to the stars returned to her roots when relocating to Grandtully three years ago after running west end Glasgow florist, Grace, for 10 years.

Among the goals she kicked when securing clients was Rangers Football Club, where before every home match her team would decorate the Ibrox ground’s hospitality suites with floral displays.

However, her biggest annual event client for the past 10 years has been T in the Park, providing thousands of stems each year for displays in the artists’ village, dressing rooms and “pampering area”.

The initial window of opportunity at T came courtesy of interior designer Laura McInnes.

“Laura specialises in making dressing rooms look nice for the artists, all the finishing touches, and she used to come into our shop to order flowers for bands playing the SEC, everyone from Travis to Pavarotti,” she said.

“For T in the Park she gives us a brief on the colour scheme she’s thinking about and then we work on designs.”

Typically making delivery of stems on Thursday morning at the Balado site, the job is usually plain sailing, although one band in particular threw a spanner in the works.

“Oh yes, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers,” she said. “They decided they wanted their whole area filled with trees but they only gave us an hour’s notice.

“So what we did was to gather every last piece of greenery we had on hand in the shop and sent it down to the site – I think the band wanted a natural effect.”

Now happily back in the Highlands, Mrs Harvey operates a workshop instead of a retail premises, getting all her flowers direct from Holland via truck twice a week.

Weddings are her main bread and butter and last year, in a T in the Park spin-off, she made a pilgrimage to the Isle of Bute to beautify T mogul Geoff Ellis’s wedding to Fiona Rosie with gorgeous summer blooms.

So did she get an invite to the reportedly extravagant event? “No I’m afraid not – it was strictly business,” she said.