Living in limbo

This evening, I was on the phone with a potential client who is planning a wedding for March. It’s at a beautiful venue in the area, one to which I’ve been to attend a friend’s wedding (nearly ten years ago), and her wedding coordinator suggested she contact me about the sorts of flower stuff she and her fiance are interested in for their upcoming event.

Partway through the conversation, she asked me about timing. “What do you mean?” I asked. “Oh, just how long in advance we need to be officially booked, send a deposit, that sort of thing.” I told her my policy on deposits and my usual timeline, and she told me, “I have to share something that I’m sharing with all of the vendors for our wedding so they know in advance. My fiance was diagnosed with cancer last week, and he’s starting chemo, and we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to have the wedding on the original schedule.”

My jaw dropped. “I’m so sorry to hear that,” I told her. “I’m sorry you guys are having to go through such a serious ordeal in the middle of a time that is supposed to be really happy.” I told her I’d be flexible with the timing, and would be completely understanding if they had to postpone or cancel their event. We continued our conversation about their event and my business and what kind of flowers they like, and all I could think about was how rough it all must be. I can’t even imagine trying to plan a wedding with that looming overhead, knowing how sick my fiance is and how sick he will get in order to get better. I’ve seen cancer in the movies, and I’ve sort of tangentially seen cancer in people I’ve known. Going through an illness like that is difficult on everyone, and I can see how one might decide to just put it all off. A good friend of mine in another state who has leukemia signed all the paperwork to be as married to her wife as she can be in a state that doesn’t allow for same-sex marriage, during a time when she was very ill, and they’ve indefinitely postponed their “wedding” celebration until my friend is well enough to enjoy it. But my potential client said she and her fiance agreed they’d go ahead with the planning as though he will be healthy and well enough to have their wedding in March, and they’ll continue to revisit that as time goes on.

“I thought you should know. I told all of our vendors this week,” she said. I cannot imagine how difficult it must be to tell a total stranger, over the phone, that my significant other has an illness like that. This potential client has a lot of moxie. She and her fiance both do. He, for being game enough to continue the planning as though he’ll be through the chemotherapy wringer and out the other side far enough that he’ll be ready to celebrate their new family. She, for making those phone calls and for the optimism it takes to marry a person who may not be here in six months or a year. But I guess, really, anyone getting married takes that leap of faith. But not everyone lives in a state of will it or won’t it happen, will we or won’t we get married, will we or won’t we get to grow old together. I’m sending my good thoughts their way, not only because I want to see them get married but because I want them to have that new family; I want that leap in the midst of limbo to pay off.

Things that never actually happen

I’m sure that everyone who has a profession or is connected to a particular industry has nits to pick with how their professions or industries are depicted in movies or television. Last night, when I was watching a mindless 90s Julia Roberts rom-com, I realized I am really a wedding-industry professional (as weird as that sounds) because of how irked I was with everything that was wrong with the movie and how ridiculously unrealistic it was (at least, in all of the plot points that related to the wedding).

In said Roberts rom-com, Julia Roberts plays a woman who once made a deal with her best friend that if they both hit age 28 unmarried that they’d marry one another. The friend (played by Dermot Mulroney, owner of a rather unfortunate name) calls her up out of the blue one day to tell her that not only has he ‘met someone’ but that they got engaged a month ago and they’re getting married in four days and he wants Roberts to come to the weekend-long festivities. So we’ve already got one extremely unrealistic event, in that there’s a big fancy wedding happening and yet they didn’t send out invitations immediately after the engagement. Plus, Dermot Unfortunate is marrying a 20-year-old woman (Cameron Diaz) who hasn’t yet graduated college, and her father is a gazillionaire owner of a sports franchise and a sports media conglomerate. That right there is just so unbelievably bizarre that I almost had to turn the movie off, because no.

People with oodles of money could, theoretically, plan a huge fancy wedding with lots of pre-parties in less than a month’s time, but nearly all of the high end vendors in any given big city are going to be booked months if not years in advance and it’s frankly bizarre to assume that the venue, caterer, photographer, florist, etc. that works with high-end clientele would be willing to drop whatever event/s they already had on the books for this spur-of-the-moment ill-fated match between a struggling sports writer and a jillionaire’s college dropout daughter. Money can do a lot, but it can’t make up for a long-term reputation ding that a vendor would get for canceling other events at the last minute.

So far we have a huge fancy wedding planned in a really short period of time yet no invitations were mailed and vendors high-end enough for a brazillionaire’s daughter yet willing to drop other clients or events to instead do this shindig. The next incredibly unrealistic thing is that when Julia Roberts lands in Chicago (because of course a food writer can afford to fly across the country on a moment’s notice) Cameron Diaz immediately asks her to be Maid of Honor. OK, nobody does that. It would not ever, ever happen. Nobody asks a complete stranger to stand up as wedding attendant unless they’re drunk and getting married by Elvis in Vegas or something. So Julia sort of accepts? and then they go straight to the fancy high-end dress salon and Julia gets a fancy dress that already fits her pretty much exactly. Again, would never happen.

With less than a month of planning, there are several fancy parties and events leading up to the wedding (nope and nope) and Julia spends the whole movie trying to keep her Kermit Baloney from marrying Mary Sue Diaz. Then Julia’s Sassy Gay Friend Rupert Everett flies across the country for a few hours to…pretend he’s her fake gay fiance? and then leaves again? It’s all very weird. Anyhow, there’s a wedding happening “on Sunday” and yet Cameron Diaz (THE BRIDE) seems to have no interest in the wedding details. She’s not stressed out at all about the party, she seems to have completely forgotten about the main event because she’s mostly just worried about her man falling for Julia Roberts instead. Or something. We don’t see any evidence of a wedding planner or an event coordinator or the bride’s mom or anybody dealing with wedding details. Even the wealthiest 20-year-old college dropout should have SOME interest as the bride in her own damn wedding. Somehow this whole wedding is coming together and nobody is in charge or seems to have any interest in making sure it all turns out OK.

The bride and groom have a big fight the night before the wedding and they sort of break up except they don’t tell anyone the next morning when they go to the pre-wedding fancy outdoor sit-down breakfast with elaborate floral centerpieces, and Julia Roberts shows up in a long-sleeved crop top (!) and causes a big scene and then there’s a low-speed chase and a stolen catering truck and the bride goes and hides in the bathroom at Wrigley Field (!?!) and it has to be late morning or early afternoon by now, and “the wedding is at six pm!” and shouldn’t the bride in a big fancy high-end wedding have, like, hair and makeup appointments? Where is the photographer capturing the day? And Julia calls one of the other bridesmaids and tells her to ‘bring my dress to the church’ and makes sure Saint Diaz and Kermit Baloney kiss and make up. And we cut to the ceremony in the church, and somehow Julia’s hair and makeup are perfect and so is Cameron’s and it happened like MAGIC because they didn’t have any time to get ready or get dressed or anything.

Then the Sassy Gay Friend shows up again at the end of the reception and takes Julia for a spin around the dance floor after they talk to one another on cell phone the size of bricks. Because an editor for a food critic has enough money to fly across the country twice in one weekend, just because.

The Meaningful Details

Thanks to my wee business, I’ve been involved with a significant number of weddings to date. And luckily for me, I never seem to get tired of them – as a cultural construct, as a significant event, as something people spend months or years planning to get just right when it all comes down to a single day, a few hours. Many people don’t put much stock in my specific trade (flowers) because “flowers die,” they “only last one day.” Well, I can’t deny that. But I will say that EVERYTHING you do for a wedding is for one day – under most circumstances, that food won’t be eaten again for another meal. That music was only played once. Your ceremony lasted five minutes or 45 minutes or 90 minutes if you did it up with full mass in a Catholic church. The invitations got stuck on a fridge or tossed in the garbage, the cake was consumed (or not, depending on how much fondant was involved), the beverages metabolized. They say after a wedding all you have left are memories and photos. So I will agree that flowers are just another frivolous aspect of a traditional (or nontraditional, if you swing that way) wedding.

BUT. Flowers are something I find fascinating when it comes to weddings and traditions. It’s true that they only last a day, intended for a fleeting moment. But the history of using flowers in a wedding celebration, worn or carried, used as decoration, is probably as old as weddings themselves. It’s an art form using perishable materials, much like gourmet food. We use flowers to mark significant events – the birth of a baby, to note a performance well done, a graduation, a wedding, an anniversary, an illness, a death. Flowers are at once ephemeral and timeless. And for some people, flowers can tell a story.

For our wedding, many of the flowers were grown by my mom. I used a piece of the tree that was planted the day I was born and picked wildflowers that were personally significant to me and my life to use in my bouquet. When I work with a bridal couple, if I’ve never met them I like to hear the story of their relationship and find out whether there are any meaningful details that I might be able to capture in their personal or decor flowers, whether it be something that grew in grandma’s garden, or a favorite herb, or something grown by friends or family. Recently, my cousin Scarlett and her long-term significant other decided to get married, and after being engaged a month or so they decided to get married soon and then have a big party later.

I’ve written before about Scarlett and why she is so important to my life, but let’s simplify by calling her my not-biologically-related to me sister. Technically she’s my half step cousin, but she’s also a very close friend and has known me since I was born. And so when she called me up this summer to tell me she and Jason were going to have a mini almost-elopement in San Francisco in October, I was both thrilled and terrified – thrilled, of course, that they’d decided on a wedding that would work best for them, and terrified I wouldn’t do her bouquet (or the other small personal flowers used for their tiny wedding) justice. I asked her whether she had any special flowers she might want, and she gave me free reign to do whatever I liked. After brainstorming a ton of ideas I sent a message to my sisters asking them for a bit of feedback, and what I received went along with the major ideas I’d had.

Since the ceremony was tiny and immediate-family-and-closest-friends-only, I wanted Scarlett’s bouquet to have a piece of me and of my mom and my sisters and the place where she grew up. My friend Brian’s roommate grows amazing dahlias, among other flowers, and he offered me full use of his yard’s bounty. I sourced a few additional things at a local market, and here’s the final bouquet.

Scarlett’s bouquet included homegrown dahlias in many colors, veronica (which I used in my sister Laurel’s bouquet), lisianthus (which I used in my sister Lissa’s bouquet), snapdragons and larkspur (which I used in my bouquet), three succulents (one of which grew in my mom’s yard), and passion flower vine. I used a collar of cuttings from my birth tree (a douglass fir) and from a redwood tree, because of the redwoods where Scarlett grew up. Interspersed were cuttings from my sister Laurel’s tree, and the whole thing was wrapped with a pale green silk, some of which I used 4.5 years ago to make a purse for Lissa’s wedding.

Because Jason is a lifelong cycling enthusiast, I wanted to do something to reflect that in his boutonniere. After doing some digging, I found a local community bicycle shop that gave me a small bike sprocket for free, which I spray painted silver to make it stand out more. I used a homegrown calendula, larkspur, a bit of Laurel’s tree, and broom corn in Jason’s bout along with the sprocket. I had no idea what Jason was wearing but the boutonniere ended up matching his outfit exactly.

Scarlett and Jason were married at sunset on October 20, overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge at Land’s End in San Francisco. I could not be happier for them, and was so glad to be able to play a part in their celebration.

25 years

Twenty-five years ago today, my baby sister was born. I still remember the day pretty clearly, my parents leaving for the hospital in the middle of the night, the neighbor who stayed with us making pancakes in the morning, going into the forest with my dad to help find the perfect baby bay laurel tree that would become Laurel’s tree.

Six weeks ago my baby sister got married (recap post coming on Monday morning) and moved to Ireland, but before that she worked full time as a legal secretary and volunteered as a CASA. Before that, she traveled to Ireland (where she met the man who she’d eventually marry) after graduating from UC Santa Barbara. My sister is gorgeous and accomplished and wonderful, and we all miss her terribly.

First dance

I used sprigs of bay laurel from her tree in Laurel’s wedding bouquet and in her husband’s boutonniere because I’m sentimental like that. It was a way to tie her new family to her family of origin, a way to bridge her journey from daughter and sister to wife (and maybe, someday, mother). I also made her a wreath of laurel from her tree to wear during the reception, long a symbol of victory. Laurel has been victorious in many of the achievements she’s set out to accomplish so far in her first 25 years on this planet. I have no doubt that she’ll reach every other goal she sets for herself. I love you, Floral, and I hope your new Irish family made your first quarter century celebration a good one.

On Laurel's wedding day

The Creepy Coke Room

Over the weekend, Dan and I flew to San Diego so we could attend my cousin’s wedding (and so I could do the flowers for said cousin’s wedding). It was a very nice wedding, about as Jesus-y as the last one, and thankfully the ceremony wasn’t overly long. The wedding itself took place in Julian, which is in the foothills east of San Diego proper. I don’t know what I was expecting, weather-wise, but I certainly was not expecting it to be quite as cold (below freezing on Saturday night with corresponding temps in the high 30s at 2 PM Saturday afternoon) or as wet as it ended up being. The ceremony was supposed to be outside, which is understandable considering how beautiful the place was, but holy cow was it ever cold. Thankfully, they made the decision on Sunday morning to move the whole shebang into the Pine Hills Lodge.

The road to Pine Hills

In lieu of payment for my work, my cousin and her fiance paid for our flights down to San Diego and for us to stay at a separate inn in Julian (not where the wedding was held, as that was booked). When we got to the place with the back seat of the rental car full of hydrangea buckets, we were let into this teeny tiny crackerbox of a room that was barely big enough for a full-sized bed, a desk, and a shelving unit; railroad-style bathroom squeezed in along the side. I spent several hours both Saturday afternoon/evening and Sunday morning working on flower stuff, popping personal flowers into the minifridge as I finished each boutonniere or flower girl wreath, and asking Dan to hold the glue gun for me because there was no surface on which I could set it down while I was working. The place was MINISCULE. Had it not been so cold, I probably would have worked outside, but as it was I could hardly feel my hands after being outdoors for only a couple of minutes.

Even smaller than it looks in the photo

For most of the day/evening, two buckets lived in the bathroom and the other two between the bed and the TV. I walked back and forth at least 29385798745 times to grab the things I needed, using the top of the mini fridge and the shelving units and the desk and the comfy chair and the bathroom sink as work space. It was by far the smallest space I’ve ever had available for doing wedding flowers, but it all worked out in the end.

At least they made the bathroom smell nice

Dan got to explore the town of Julian while I was making pretties, and he brought me back a piece of apple pie that I heated up in the little toaster oven. Julian’s apple pie is sort of like the fudge in Estes Park or the fudge on Mackinac Island: it’s the thing that everyone goes to the town to eat. I guess Julian grows a lot of apples, because not only were there apple pies sold everywhere, there was also apple cider, both soft and hard. I had my doubts about the pie (how good can a piece of apple pie BE, anyway?) but became a convert from one bite. I suspect they are all laced with crack.

Other than the bizarrely cold weather and the pretty fall color, what I will remember most about the quick trip to Julian is the decor in our wee room. It was all coke. Coke, coke, coke. Coke napkin dispensers and coke advertisements and coke cups, glasses and mugs. Coke with Santa and coke with small children.

Pretty much everything in the room was Coke-related

How about a nice frosty mug of Coke?

Coke made Santa, so Santa shills for Coke

Even the bathroom was stuffed with Coke-iness

You know you want one.

COKE COKE COKE

Even a coke trash can.

I must admit, for a room that small to be crammed with THAT much coke memorabilia was more than a little creepy. I started to wonder what might happen if you tried to drink a Pepsi in there. Probably the spirits would come out of the advertisements and eat your face, is what.

So far

Nine boutonnieres
Three corsages
Two flower girl hair wreaths
One bride’s bouquet
One toss bouquet
Three bridesmaid bouquets

Two of 17 vases lined with ti leaves in preparation for centerpieces and large arrangements

Still to go:
15 vases need to be lined with ti leaves
19 arrangements
One large ceremony piece, which will depend in large part on whether the wedding is indoors or outdoors tomorrow.

It’s cold as hell. We’re in Southern California, east of San Diego, and it’s going to get down to freezing tonight.

I am tired.

Highlights: apple pie, hydrangea fun, sparkly things.

Things I don’t understand about the DIY wedding industry

Every once in a while, when I’m in a craft store, I go down the “wedding” aisle, just to see the latest developments in DIY wedding crafts. Maybe I’ve got a more critical eye than most, but much of the time what I see is, for lack of a better term, tacky. It looks cheap and chintzy and, well, UGLY.

Maybe my standards are too high. Maybe there are people for whom the doilies and the faux boutonnieres and the tulle shaped like birds are their ideal wedding decor. But last weekend,I walked down that aisle and I saw something that was supposed to be a bouquet…holder? With fake stems that look like some sort of paralyzed jellyfish.

This is supposed to make people want to buy it?

I don’t know about you, but I would NEVER EVER want to carry something like this down the aisle. I’d rather carry nothing. I’d rather carry weeds with dirty roots. This is just…hideous.

The best time I cage danced with a giant inflatable penis

AKA Baby Sister Wedding Recap, part the first

My little sister has a lot of friends. She’s always been super-social and has maintained strong friendships with people she met in elementary school, in addition to making all sorts of friends along the way. Besides her sisters, she asked four friends to be bridesmaids and another to officiate the wedding, so I was quite interested to find out what the ladies would plan for the wedding-adjacent activities. I wasn’t at all involved with the planning of my own bachelorette party back in 2008, and wasn’t expecting to be a part of the planning for Laurel’s hen night because she had so many important ladies her own age to do that.

They did not disappoint.

I got an invitation in the mail to Laurel’s party, to begin at a Chevy’s and continue at a cowboy bar in Fremont. I wasn’t sure quite what to expect, but the invite said to wear my best casual with a western flair, which in my case included my boots under my tightest pair of jeans (right now, not especially tight), a white tank top, and a chambray button-down, my hair in two braids. I got to the restaurant and a gaggle of ladies in their mid-20s, two people my middle sister’s age, and Lissa all said hi. I knew many of them, but a few were new to me. One of the girls had come for a visit from Australia; the timing with Laurel’s hen night was fortuitous, and she giggled along with the rest of the crew. We’d been asked to prepare a story or memory about Laurel that we could share with the group, and I learned quite a few things about my little sister I’d never known. For most of her high school years and all of college, I was living in Denver and rarely saw her, so it was a treat for me to get to hear stories from people who’d had completely different experiences living and being around her.

Some of Laurel's college friends and the bachelorette

(In case you’re wondering, the story I shared was from when she was two years old, probably a story nobody else except Lissa knew, so at least I was original.)

After we finished our meal, we all headed to the hotel where some of the girls were staying the night. After some primping, most of the girls waited for the free shuttle to the venue, while a few of us drove to ensure we’d get there in time to pay the lower cover charge.

Some of Laurel's bffs with the lucky lady. One of them is nicknamed Jameson Flaps Boner.

I thought it was a cowboy bar. It turned out to be a huge place, easily holding over a thousand people. There was a big stage, three dance floor areas, two separate bars, and a mechanical bull. And oh yeah, it was LOUD. Over the course of the evening, there must have been several hundred people, all talking, laughing, shouting, cursing to be heard over the general din, the piped in music, and the live band.

The main part of our group arrived just before 8 PM. And then…out came the giant inflatable penis.

Helpful bartender, Dick, Delaney

Laurel had, like her big sisters before her, requested there be no penis paraphernalia at her bachelorette party, but her aforementioned Aussie friend brought a 6-foot inflatable penis in her luggage, and once your friend has schlepped a giant inflatable penis halfway across the world you can’t exactly object to it tagging along for your hen night festivities. The bartender was kind enough to assist with the inflation of Dick, as he was named by the group, and even put some water inside so it would stand (mostly) upright.

What interested me most about the presence of Dick amongst our group was how many more men were interested in taking photos with Dick, writing on Dick, punching Dick, or striking up a conversation about Dick than women. It seems men just couldn’t stay away. Dick was at his best after someone gave him a face and someone else gave him a pink sparkly cowboy hat to wear – though, sadly, the hat made his upright stance far more challenging.

I borrowed Dick's hat for a while.

The few of us in our late 20s and early 30s mostly watched as the younger crowd enjoyed themselves. I tried to have conversations with people, but it was so ridiculously loud that after a while I had to give up on that and just sort of soak in the atmosphere. I particularly enjoyed the people who took on the challenge of the mechanical bull; I saw one guy manage to keep his seat for far longer than the typical under-8-seconds. The crowd was full of birthday parties, other bachelorette parties, and scores of groups of friends and couples enjoying a country twist on top 40 hits. I line danced a little, and I had two tasty adult beverages, and I helped tote Dick across the giant room and through the pulsing throng when several of the girls decided they wanted to dance with him in one of the cages next to the stage.

Hey, it was a hen night. There had to be some shenanigans, right?

There's one to check off the life list

During the band’s set break, Laurel managed to hit it off with the lead singer, and she told her they’d be calling some people celebrating things up on the stage a few songs into the second set. We’d already pre-arranged a time for Dan to pick Lissa and me up and drive us back north, but I just couldn’t miss that. I danced a little bit in the big group and remembered exactly why I don’t like dancing with a ton of strangers all packed, drunk and sweaty, in like wiggling sardines. Then the song came on and my sister brought Dick up with her and everyone took photos and everyone laughed and everyone danced and then it was time to go, so I pushed through the throngs, held my breath past the clouds of cigarette smoke just outside the door, and got into the car. It was a fun night, but if I ever go back to that place, I’ll remember to wear my earplugs. And next time I cage dance, there won’t be any giant inflatable penes.

Dick did not have stage fright.

*All photos shamelessly stolen from Laurel’s friends, who posted these on Facebook so I could in turn share them.

The Insider

My bridesmaid bouquet, the day after

Sometimes, I think it’s easier to tell a story when one isn’t directly involved in the events that unfolded. Then again, sometimes it’s easier to tell a story when it’s specifically your story to tell. When it comes to Leah and Simon‘s wedding, I’m somewhere in between those two poles, as obviously I wasn’t one of the people getting married, but at the same time I was a big part of the process from start to finish.

We were getting ready to leave for California the day Meg at A Practical Wedding wrote this post. I was taking a break from packing to look at the internet, and as soon as I read that post I knew exactly who Meg was talking about. I knew Leah had been to the Mighty Summit, and I knew there could not possibly be another person there who fit the description. I sent Meg an email, and she confirmed it, and I got all excited about it. When we got to California, I wrote a long email to Meg as a potential submission to her site, all about Leah and Simon and everything they had done for us for our wedding (and my sister’s!) and why they deserved an awesome wedding themselves, but then she never posted it. 😦 She did post this, though, so when we saw Leah and Simon that week for an event in San Francisco we got all chatty about wedding stuff. I immediately offered to do the flowers for the wedding, in addition to anything else they might need help with, but at that point details were still pretty nebulous as they needed a date and a venue before they could do too much more planning.

Weeks went by, and turned into months. I started helping Leah and Simon look for a venue, as other connections didn’t seem to be panning out for them. After the date of the Royal wedding was announced, Simon’s UK family let him know they could only come out for a visit during that time, and so the general dates started to be set. They came up here to look at a potential venue in January, but ultimately decided to go with a place in Berkeley (the same choice I would have made, if it had been my event.) Their details started to come together, and I looked forward to hearing more specifics about what they wanted for flower types and colors, and any other details they wanted to share.

* * * * * * * *

After getting some idea of the direction L&S wanted to go with their flowers, I started brainstorming. Yellow, white, structured, lemons, chili peppers. Whiskey bottles, mason jars, baby food jars. Red and white baker’s twine. Daisies, dahlias, nothing fluffy or fussy. I’m going to write a big long post about it on my Green Snapdragon blog (with photos, of course!), so I won’t get too into it here. But I will say that my experiments involved fishing line and weights, and getting sawdust in my bra, and scrambling up a hillside covered in poison oak while wearing flip flops.

* * * * * * * *

In March, Leah asked me to stand up with her at the wedding. On her blog! I was super surprised! It felt like a birthday present, because she posted it the day after my birthday. I borrowed two dresses from my sister, found pretty red shoes, and decided on which dress to wear. Details started to come together more, and I planned a bachelorette party, and I spent time with Leah and Wombat at their house while Dan attended Simon’s bachelor party. We looked at photos of flowers and talked about all things wedding and it felt really nice to have a just us girls time once Wombat went to bed. (I read him two stories, and we laughed, and he gave me lots of hugs.) A few days later, I got a long email about flower specifics, and plans began to solidify. I did one last experiment (again, with the fishing line, but for a different project) and knew exactly what I’d be doing once I got all the various jars and vases and baskets and containers from Leah and Simon during flower prep time.

* * * * * * * *

On Thursday, we packed everything we’d need to be gone for several days, and I sent my friend Karen a note on FB reiterating details we’d talked about when she and her husband came for dinner on Wednesday night. Unfortunately, the instructions were more specific than we were expecting, because (another blog post, another story) we’ve currently got a stray nursing mama cat in our garage that Feline Rescue asked if we’d feed until the babies are big enough to be weaned and mama can be caught and fixed. I went around the yard and picked flowers to leave for my sister’s roommate (my sister left for Ireland, and we were staying in their place until the roommate came home) and also picked a ton of little white flowers blooming on a weed, because I knew they’d fit in with everything else I was going to be doing for the wedding and hey, it was one less thing I’d have to buy. We drove south, leaving a bit later than we’d planned, and headed straight for West Oakland BART. Because oh yeah, we were going to a concert for Dan’s (early) birthday! (Also, another blog post.)

After the concert, we picked up the key to my sister’s house from my other sister and settled in at Laurel’s house.

Friday morning, we drove to San Francisco and I wandered the San Francisco Flower Mart, comparing prices and yelling random things to Dan while he struggled to understand and write everything down on a clipboard. Unlike my last sojourn to the Mart, when I just started buying randomly, this time I made myself look at all of my options before I began to buy. Leah had Very Specific ideas about flower types and colors and I wanted to make sure I could get enough of everything I needed while still fitting into her parameters. The problem with lacking a badge (which I can’t get until I get my business license) is that you have to go after 10 AM, when most of the sellers have closed up, and the longer you stay, the more of them begin to close. So I really was working under a time constraint. Luckily, I managed to find almost everything I needed. We left the city and drove to Berkeley, where I bought chili peppers (and we got a $43 parking ticket!!! because we didn’t see the parking kiosk half a block down the street), and we used the crappy $tarbucks internet to get directions to the Oakland Flower Mart. We went to Michaels where I found ribbon and got the glue gun and some other stuff I needed, and we went to Home Depot because I felt like Michaels was asking too much for Plaster of Paris. (More on that in my Green Snapdragon post.) I got the last few things I needed at the Oakland Flower Mart, and we drove, car full of flowers and craft supplies, to my sister’s house. I immediately started in on my first project, pomanders, and ran out of yellow button mums far sooner than I expected to. So we went to Trader Joe’s and I got more. After the pomanders were finished, I made garlands for the manzanita branch while we watched Fringe and then The Hangover (which wasn’t nearly as funny as people had led me to believe). Then we went to bed. I was really tired.

Saturday, I was awake before 8AM because I knew there was a lot to do. We repacked and cleaned and organized and I consolidated all the flowers down into two very full buckets and we managed to get everything (all our luggage, pillows, sleeping bags, flowers, huge manzanita branch, etc.) including the two of us into the car, and we drove to Brian’s house, who had generously offered to let me use his kitchen to work the rest of my flower magic. He and his roommates all did stuff around me while I made two identical bridal bouquets, a bridesmaid bouquet, a break-apart toss bouquet, and made boutonnieres for Simon and Wombat so they’d have them for the special photo shoot on Saturday afternoon. Then, piece by piece, I did everything else. I worked from about 11 to 6:30 with maybe around 15 minutes of break in there. I shooed away curious kittens and I drank some mead and I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that Dan made me once he came back from buying shoes in San Francisco. I was particularly pleased with how the large arrangements turned out – one with wired lemons in the arrangement and floating chili peppers, the other with wired chili peppers and floating sliced lemons. I set aside flowers for decorating the cake and for the other personal flowers (boutonnieres and corsages for family and the officiant), hoping that someone would notice the theme I had decided to use. I tied bits of red and white twine along with basic brown twine around mason jars, added water to the bourbon bottles, and packaged everything up for transport. We changed and left for the rehearsal dinner, and spent a couple of hours visiting with Leah and Simon’s out-of-town friends and family, hugging Heather B., eating pizza, meeting Leah’s boss (also their officiant), and getting last minute instructions for Sunday’s events. When we got back to Brian’s, I finished everything but the last few corsages and bouts, cleaned up the majority of my mess, and went to bed.

Taken by Brian in his kitchen

Sunday I woke up at 7 AM, and went in the cold kitchen to finish the last bits of everything. I put the personal flowers in the refrigerator, ironed my dress, washed out a filthy old compost tub in which to transport the two large arrangements, and we packed the car. I wasn’t sure whether or not we’d need to borrow Brian’s car, but with all of our luggage in the house, we managed to fit everything in – with me in the back seat, holding a bucket of flowers, bouquets in pickle jars on the seat next to me, my leg over the manzanita branch. Luckily, it wasn’t a far drive to the venue. We got there a few minutes early and unloaded the car as soon as the doors were unlocked. Dan left to get ice and cat litter (again, more on that in the Green Snapdragon post) and food, since I hadn’t yet eaten anything. I stayed to help unload linens and glassware and living room furniture and pvc posts in concrete and cases of beer and everything else that people hauled in cars and trucks and a giant van. Sara and Ron came, Sara with her hair done up in curlers and bright red toes. It felt like an army of people had all come to help set up. We unstacked and moved chairs, unfolded tables, rearranged the room, covered everything in linens, and people began setting up the decorations while I got to to work on the flowers. I wasn’t sure until we got there where everything would go or how I’d arrange it all because I’d never seen the space, but I settled on something I liked that involved multiples of each thing in the center of the table, over a runner and a snar we’d brought, leftover from our wedding 3 years ago. Flowers went into bourbon bottles. Flowers and pomanders went on the kids’ table. Dan helped with my manzanita branch project, pouring the cat litter into the large heavy urn while I held the branch in place, and together we moved it to the drinks table. I set everything up with lemons, and I tied the mum garlands to the branches, and it all came together exactly the way I had it in my head. I ate a donut and an odwalla bar before I went beyond the Point of No Return Unfed MLE.

We were told that the army of people helping would only have an hour to completely transform the space, but they let us work for an hour and a half. When we finished, it looked amazing. I gave myself a mental high-five, and we left to meet Brian for lunch at an Ethiopian place in Oakland (my treat) as a thanks for letting me take over his kitchen for a day and a half. We were both still pretty stressed; neither of us had showered in the morning because Brian was asleep and we didn’t know if there were clean towels, and Dan had to sew some buttons on his pants to be able to wear suspenders, and I still had to do hair and makeup and at the very least look presentable because I was standing up in the wedding. Lunch finished, we rushed back to the house, took showers, got ready, and were back at the venue at 3:30 PM exactly, me to assemble and decorate the cake, Dan to take photos of the flowers that he hadn’t managed to get during setup because both of our cameras were having battery issues.

When we got to the venue, Kristin and Scott were there with the cake, and we set it up. Serendipitously, I had exactly enough ribbon leftover from bouquets to decorate the layers, and I used the last of the flowers to make it look pretty. People began to arrive right away, and everyone looked so pretty. Amber was in green, and Holly was in yellow, and Heather B was wearing this awesome corsage. Will and Nina came in and I squee’d a little in my head and we introduced ourselves and I gave them hugs, and Will and Dan bonded over their bow ties. I met Meg and David, and Carla, and hugged our friend Dan (the Irish German! for those who have been reading this blog forever) and Jackie when they came in. Sara was the prettiest girl in the room (until Leah walked in in her dress, of course) because she MADE HER DRESS AND IT WAS TOTALLY FABULOUS AND AMAZING. Like, I desperately wish I’d gotten a photo of it because I cannot even describe how awesome it was.

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I had my baggie of personal flowers and I sought out the grandmothers and the moms, the dad and the groom and the best man and the officiant. And the wombat. And I pinned a posy to each breast, my own little stamp of approval on the festivities. One of the things I like best about doing flowers for a wedding is the opportunity to make personal flowers. Everyone in Leah’s family got daisies, her mom with white and yellow like Leah’s bouquet, with a butter-colored freesia, her dad’s boutonniere tied with red and white string. The groom and groomsman got craspedia (and wire fiddleheads, and brown twine). Simon’s mom got yellow mums and freesias. And Wombat got craspedia, a white/yellow button mum, two tiny daisy-like feverfew, and a red and white twine wrapping – a perfect blending of both the families.

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This is when I discuss the thing about worlds colliding. At this wedding of Leah and Simon were two of my friends from high school who knew Leah and Simon through us, having become friends because of everyone attending parties or events we’ve had (Sara and the Irish German and their respective partners). At this wedding was my college boyfriend’s ex girlfriend (the one he dated for nearly 10 years after he dated me), who is now in a band with Simon because they met at a party we had at the Irish German’s house a year ago last Christmas (my ex was the Irish German’s roommate for a while) and talked music. At this wedding were bloggers I’ve read (stalked) for years, and it was pretty much blowing my mind how so many of my worlds were all coming together at the same time. I wasn’t even this mindblown at our own wedding, because I knew exactly who was coming and how they all related to me. But to be in a room and talking to Will and Nina and then 10 feet away was Sara who I’ve known since 10th grade and on the other side of the room was my college boyfriend’s ex, and at the next table was a super high profile wedding blogger – there’s just no way to explain the way I felt. Mostly it made me feel like I wanted the cocktail hour to go on forever and ever, just to get a chance to talk to everyone for longer than a few minutes. So here’s where I thank Leah and Simon for having a wedding and inviting these people because never again in my life will so many of my worlds be colliding at once. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

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During the ceremony, I stood in my red dress and watched while Leah’s boss said exactly the right words. I held Leah’s bouquet of yellow and white daisies while she said her vows to Simon. I laughed and I cheered and I may have even cried a teeny-tiny bit. The beautiful words everyone said made me feel all squishy and reminiscing about my own wedding, and I looked at Dan standing in the back of the room. Everyone’s faces were full of joy, which is the best part of getting to stand up in a wedding – seeing the faces of the bride and groom’s communities, everyone so happy to be able to witness such a deeply personal and meaningful event. We raised our voices to signify our approval of the union of Leah and Simon, Wombat cheering along with the rest of the guests in the front row.

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We did formal photos, after the ceremony, and I helped wrangle Wombat who wanted nothing more than to be chased halfway down the street and back, over and over again. There were family photos, and Original Wedding Party (ie, their book club) photos, and some with me in them. I hugged my friend and smiled for the camera and wished there was some way I could convey in the photos how happy I was for her and for her husband and for their child, that they’d finally done it, all the years of everything they’d been through culminating in this day of community and family and love. The taco truck pulled up, and after that everything was tacos and burritos and drinking and cheese and dancing and chatting and laughing and flowers everywhere, flowers I made to help transform the space to be THEIR space, if only for a few hours. Little kids were squawking and chasing and bunny ears and tossing the pomanders I’d made. The best man and I gave speeches and toasted the happy couple. I tried my best to be present, to be involved in everything all at once, to talk to everyone I knew and some people I didn’t, while my feet grew more sore (brand new shoes and months without wearing heels). I danced with the groom. I got a couple of tacos and had champagne. I was trying to open a bottle when Leah and Simon cut their cake. I missed the age-old tradition of them feeding one another, but the pop of the cork came at exactly the right time, and people cheered. I managed to only pee once, because wrangling with the spanx and a strapless dress was not the most fun thing I’d ever done.

Slowly, people left. I hugged everyone I knew goodbye, promised to exchange information with some. I held the baby and she chewed on my hand. I danced with my husband one last time, slow, with my head on his chest. And then, Simon put on an apron and the rest of us got to work breaking everything down, taking down decorations, giving away flowers, clearing everything away, stacking chairs, folding tables. Vehicles got loaded. We put all the gifts in our car, and the leftover food that needed refrigeration. We cleaned and we organized and we packed and in such a short time, so fleeting, the room was as it had been when we’d arrived at 11 AM. Simon mopped the floor in his apron, and we left, hugging Sara and Ron goodbye, car full of presents and supplies and leftover cake, and we drove it over to Leah and Simon’s house and unloaded everything and went to bed.

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I felt the same way after Leah and Simon’s wedding that I did after ours and after Lissa and Curtis’s wedding. Maybe it’s just something that comes with being in a wedding (as minimal as my role as stand-up girl really was, which solely consisted of literally standing up for a few minutes, holding a bouquet, posing for photos, and giving a 3 minute speech) AND doing flowers for the wedding. Or maybe it’s that those are the three weddings at which I’ve known the most people and felt pulled in so many different directions. Yesterday, my aching feet just added to the bone-weary fatigue I already felt, the feeling of having had all of my energy drained the day before – my vendor energy and my friend energy and my extrovert energy and my set-up and clean-up energy. I felt like an empty shell, with the added letdown like you get when you’re a kid and it’s the day after Christmas. I’ve been looking forward to Leah and Simon’s wedding day for years, and while I had no idea the role(s) I’d play in it, it was still like Christmas.

So there you have it, for anyone reading this who wasn’t at Leah and Simon’s wedding. It was like Christmas and a birthday and a giant party all rolled up into one. Thank you again, my friends, for letting me be a part of something so personal and special and fun. I hope it was everything the two of you wanted it to be.

This is what I said yesterday into a microphone at the wedding.

Hi everyone. I’m Emily, Leah’s* best lady today.

Many of you have known Leah or Simon their entire lives. You knew them as children, as teenagers, and as young adults just starting their lives. You’ve known them on their own, before they were a couple. I have ONLY known Leah and Simon as a couple, and I have a hard time imagining them without each other.

I met Leah the same way I met my husband – on the internet. I highly recommend it, by the way, as a good way to meet people. In 2006, when Dan and I were planning a trip to the Bay Area, I sent Leah an email asking if she and Simon might be interested in meeting up during our visit. The four of us had sushi and spent hours chatting and laughing at an English pub. We all hit it off and got along great, which you never know about when meeting people from the internet in real life.

Since then, I’ve watched Leah and Simon grow as a couple, and heard about their grand adventures. I was thrilled when they found a house to buy together. In early 2008, my husband Dan asked Simon to be a groomsman in our wedding, and only a few weeks later they found out they would be having Wombat in December. (It was planned, by the way.) I was so happy to be able to see and hear about Leah and Simon’s adventures in pregnancy and cheered when Simon called to let us know Wombat had been born. We celebrated that night by drinking Leah and Simon’s favorite pink champagne.

Over the years, when Dan and I visited the Bay Area, Leah and Simon have put themselves out to host us, make us feel welcome, and to have adventures with us. Watching them navigate their lives as parents has made it very clear how well they work together as a team, and how happy they are together. I was so honored when Leah asked me to stand up with her today, to be a part of their somewhat unconventional timeline. But knowing Leah and Simon as well as I do, they did things exactly the right way for them. So here’s to the next chapter in this family’s adventure. To Leah and Simon and Wombat!

*When I said this into a microphone at the wedding, I used their real names.