When Iranian fashion model Nazanin Jafarian Ghaissarifar married Nigerian oil heir Folarin Alakija in June 2017, the wedding was held at Blenheim Palace, an 18th century pile in Oxfordshire where Winston Churchill was born. The day featured a 12-foot cake and a performance by Blurred Lines singer Robin Thicke. But it was the flowers that stole the show.Billowing waves of white roses-1 million in all-cascaded across the floors. Thousands of white orchids dripped from chandeliers and reached in marshmallow arcs over fireplaces. The church altarpiece was made of hydrangeas.The floral wizardry, which dominated social media and the Daily Mail for days afterward, was the work of Jeff Leatham, who serves a Hollywood clientele out of a Beverly Hills studio and also acts as the artistic director at Paris's Four Seasons George V. The florist had done extravagant weddings before-check out the photos of Tina Turner's Zurich nuptials in his book, Jeff Leatham: Visionary Floral Art and Design, published by Rizzoli in 2014. But this celebration was something else entirely. "It was, like, walls of orchids and walls of hydrangea," Leatham recalls. "It was a floral orgasm dream." The cost of a floral orgasm dream: $1.2 million.
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