Wedding Blog

Anxious and behind schedule, Sister Shortcake and I returned home. My bridesmaids had already arrived, as per my elaborate timetable, but I was too harried to say more than a brief hello.

{my best friend from high school - such a beautiful bridesmaid!}

Already other relatives were arriving, and the visual combination of tons of people + my father’s lighting equipment + overnight bags from bridesmaids + food + piles of shoes and jackets was making me claustrophobic. People were milling around, chatting. Someone had turned on a baseball game. I was dashing around, calling for my mother, trying to make sense of the increasing madness around me. I’m such a high-strung individual that the visual and auditory clutter was beginning to drive me bonkers. I covered my ears with my hands and tried to think. What was I supposed to be doing? Where was I supposed to be? Where was my copy of the timetable? It was too noisy! There were too many people! I ran over to the TV and shut if off. I ran over to the stereo and put on my carefully planned “getting ready” CD. With the sports commentary off and the Supremes on, I could think a little better.

Ah yes, I was supposed to be receiving my card from Mr. Shortcake around now. We had planned to exchange wedding-day cards that morning, and his mother was to deliver his card to me in exchange for the boutonnieres for the groomsmen and groom. I was surprised to discover that not only had he left me a lovely heart-felt card, but also a beautiful bouquet of white roses. If you know Mr. Shortcake, the fact that he sent me flowers without having to be asked says a LOT about the importance of the day!

Mr. Shortcake’s roses reminded me of the next item on my to-check list: the bouquets. Where were the bouquets?

{my bouquet a couple of days before the wedding, during construction}

{bridesmaid bouquet and my toss bouquet, also during construction a couple days prior}

I ran around the house, looking for my mother, calling out her name in an increasingly frantic voice. No one could tell me where she was, but I found her at last in one of the guest bathrooms. I asked her where the flowers were. She smiled, and continued applying her makeup. Calmly she told me that she had told the florist to put them into the fridge.

But I had already checked the kitchen fridge. They weren’t there.

I ran down the stairs, a light bulb of an idea growing horrifically brighter with each downward step. I passed my aunt on the landing, and asked her if she had seen the florist. Her answer gave me chills and lent wings to my pattering feet. I flew down the remaining steps and tore through the house, jumping over abandoned coats and presents alike.

And then I found my flowers.

The florist had put them, not into the kitchen fridge, but into the garage fridge. A fridge that wasn’t a fridge insomuch as a freezer. And there, at a balmy sub-zero temperature, the bouquets had died.

I had been so excited about our bouquets. Thrilled beyond measure. And now the lovely creams and pinks and palest butter cream yellows had turned into a unified mass of heart-breaking brown. I stared at them and blinked. They were still there and they were still dead. My flowers had “kicked the bucket, shuffled off their mortal coil, ran down the curtain, and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible.” Dead, dead, dead.

A sob rose up in my throat and I gulped it down. I opened my mouth and hoarsely cried out for my mother. I regained feelings in my legs, and ripped open the garage door and ran upstairs, screaming her name. She ran back to the garage with me, and tried to placate me. They weren’t so bad, you could hardly notice! The church would be dim! She pulled out one of the bouquets and a few dahlia heads fells off, landing with a soft plop on the cold cement floor. My mother gulped.

The garage door opened, and my aunt poked her head inside. I looked at her, with eyes stricken and huge. She cocked her head questioningly and told me that there was a phone call for me. And, thank the Lord, on the phone was my florist, calling to check up on me. I grasped the receiver with both hands and croaked something out. She began pep-talking me back into pre-crying-jag-land. It would be okay, she hadn’t left the city borders yet, she still had some back-up blooms in her trunk, and would swing by the grocery store on her way back to our house.

Larissa Meade made good on her word, and fixed our bouquets as best she could with a combination of Safeway flowers and Mr. Shortcake’s roses. She shushed me and reminded me that the day would go on, flowers or no flowers, and that I had better be getting dressed, right?

{Larissa’s workstation: our front porch}

{fixing up the bride’s bouquet: a lot of the pretty, fragile flowers kicked the bucket and were replaced with Mr. Shortcake’s roses}

NOTE: I have heavily Photoshopped these flowers into some semblance of their former glory. If they had looked this good on my wedding day, I wouldn’t have been so upset!