Friday, July 30, 2010

Making Choices


If I’ve done this right, I have managed to pre-post this blog. That is, I wrote this ahead of time, uploaded it before I want it to appear online and programmed it to show up on a specific date. Since I’ll be gone for three weeks I asked my writing friend (a prolific author and internet whiz) how to pre-post. She responded almost immediately with easy-to-follow instructions. So now I can continue my tradition of blogging every Friday even when I don’t have internet access!

Last Saturday I went to a wedding. A co-worker got married, and several of us attended the ceremony at a local park. The day started out with a bang - literally. I woke up to thunderstorms crashing around. I felt so bad for the bride. I had never been to an outdoor wedding and rain is the worst nightmare. The weather forecast was for storms all day long. But fortunately, the rain stopped in time for the wedding. By that time the chairs had all been moved indoors, but the rustic atmosphere of the building was charming.

Later on my daughter served as my "date" to the reception at a great restaurant downtown. The food was phenomenal, the decor was beautiful and after a slow start, the dancing began. What a great time!

As an avid crafter, the thing that impressed me most about this wedding was the number of things the bride created herself. Each flower in her bouquet, as well as those carried by the bridesmaids and flower girls, was handmade from tissue - but they looked so real no one could tell without looking closely - REALLY closely. Look again at the picture above. Could you tell they were tissue flowers? All the table centerpieces were hand-painted and filled with pictures of Michigan lighthouses. Little rocks surrounding the centerpieces were each inscribed with a drawing or wedding-related word.

The invitations were designed and printed using a home computer. Cupcakes were served (I'm assuming they were baked by either the bride or the groom since they’re both culinary school graduates). A styrofoam cake (another example of the bride’s creativity) was on display for the traditional "cutting the cake" photo opportunity. Each guest received a jar of homemade jam provided by the bride's mother.

Weddings are expensive. There's no getting around the fact. We've already married off several children, so we know. But they don't have to be extravagant. This couple decided what was important to them, and made it happen by being smart. They put in time doing some things themselves so that they could afford to pay for other niceties.

I guess this is a life lesson we've all had to take heart from time to time. We cut back on some things so that we can have the things that are important to us. I'm here on a wonderful trip on the other side of the world because I did without some other non-essentials.

Now, if only some of our world leaders would take hold of that notion, we’d be in less trouble.

No comments:

Post a Comment