The Wedding that wasn't.

       So, sometimes in life things don't work out the way we plan.  Sometimes the most elaborate plans fall apart at the last moment.  Sometimes, that's a really good thing.  You could even say, a blessing.
       Last Saturday we were supposed to be delivering the flowers for a wedding in Anacortes.  The bride, a lovely woman glowing with excitement, had come in to the shop a couple of months prior to look through our albums and pick out her bouquets.  The bouquets she like best, she told me, were the messy-looking, wild bouquets.  Full of ferns, grasses, twigs and wildflowers.   Hmmm.... messy I can do.  As a matter of fact, I believe that messy, wildflower bouquets are what I do best.  We hit it off right away. 
      Fast forward to the Friday before the wedding date.  The mother of the bride calls to let me know the wedding has been called off.  She doesn't go into details.  She doesn't need to, that part isn't any of my business.  But what to do about the floral bouquets.
      We have a pretty strict policy about when we will accept cancellations, and up until what point the deposit becomes non-refundable.  In this case, one week before the wedding, the flowers have already been pre-ordered from half a dozen different suppliers.  They are on the way from different parts of the world.  Too late to back out now.  Mom understood the situation from a business stand point, but really....what do to with all those flowers? 
      I suggested re purposing them into different bouquets.  Just as beautiful, still messy and wild, but more the type of bouquets that the bride could gift to friends or family that had been particularly helpful during this trying time.  Mom decided that they could also gift some of the bouquets to friends who had given wedding gifts that were not returnable, another great idea. 
       I feel so badly for this young woman to have to go through such a difficult time when she had been planning the most special day of her life.  But I also know that whatever it was that came up, would have come up eventually.  Next month or next year or even a couple of years down the road when there were children involved in the mix.  It's so much easier to call off a wedding at the last minute, avoiding all that future heartache, than to wait and wonder if you should have.  She's very brave and I wish her all the best for her future happiness.
     Below are pictures of some of the bouquets that she gifted to her friends and family.