This is what I was hoping for, what we (the bride and I, her mom, and anyone else in our circle who’s interested in flowery pretty-making for the upcoming wedding) were hoping for — homegrown blooms by the armload. All told, we’d chosen three varieties of dahlias, two of cosmos, an assortment of zinnias, and dill, sage, and Queen Anne’s lace, too. This, combined with any blooming or leafy things I could find in the wild come late summer.
This is what we were hoping for.
While snow blew sideways in April, I potted up twenty eight dahlia and cosmos tubers near a south-facing window in the house. The seed packets for everything else awaited their late spring scattering over freshly-turned garden soil. I watered, I carted the twenty-eight pots outside on warm, sunny days, I carted them back in before every frosty night. They sprouted. Some of them sprouted. They grew. Some of them grew. No worries, that’s why I’d planted more than we needed. Every gardener knows not everything thrives.
On a hot, sunny day in late May, we scattered seeds over flower pots and new garden beds near the cottage by the river at the private wedding venue. In June, I dashed around rainstorms, planting the remaining dahlias, cosmos, and zinnias in my own half-barrel garden. There. Between here and there, blooms would abound.
But every gardener knows not everything thrives.
Through scorching July and shimmering-hot August, I watered and waited. And waited. And waited. Timid, scraggly shoots appeared here and there. The dahlia plants sat there, like they’d forgotten how to grow. Leaves curled; some died. Zinnias, cosmos, dill, Queen Anne’s lace, and sage, typically a wild profusion, are now only a few inches high.
The wedding is in three weeks.
And here, at just the right time, comes abundance of another kind. Gardener-friends who do have a profusion have offered to share. Mama Nature has, too. And, to fill in, bundles of fresh commercial blooms will be delivered in a box on wedding week.
This, loves, is how life stories go. I’ve come to know that this planning and preparing, down to the tiny detail, is only the beginning. Then, it’s caring enough to hold it all loosely, allowing it to become what it is. Always with hope, with anticipation, with the knowledge that the best things happen when you let creativity, offerings, and wild luck in.
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The perfect philosophy for a happy life. And the wedding will be unforgettable precisely because you will let it be itself.
A wedding! How lovely! No matter how it comes about it will be perfect. I saw an unexpected field of sunflowers with their smiling faces lifted toward the sun and thought of you. Another small miracle.