In lieu of flowers

I titled this post a half hour ago, and then I went about addressing some Thank You cards. Now, coming back to it, “in lieu of flowers”, I recognize why it seemed so easy for me to type.

I used to write obituaries for a local newspaper, and when a family wanted money donated to a charity in someone’s name, they would write “in lieu of flowers, please send a donation to XXXXXXX”.

So now I feel a little awkward, but I’m also stubborn, so I’m not changing it.

* * *

This will be the first of my wedding posts. I actually, technically eloped, and my husband and I decided to do that because neither of us are good at being the center of attention and because we just made our second cross-country move in a year, and we thought paying under $2000 for everything was a fabulous idea.

Despite myself, I got a little bit of the bride fever, and I went on a DIY, crafty frenzy. At one point, I had planned on making my own dress, but I came to my senses in time. After all, eloping usually happens quickly, and ours certainly did.

Although my parents did drive up that week, so we had a post-elopement ceremony to celebrate with our families, carrying flowers down the row of courthouse benches seemed a little silly to me. Still, I had read from a lot of folks over at Off-Beat Bride that it might be helpful to have something in your hands.

Did I mention this happened theday before our scheduled courthouse bonanza?

I rushed to Michael’s!

I stayed there for about 2 hours!

And I wound up with two ideas. The first was a rustic stick (bear with me) with a heart-shaped blackboard at the top, almost like a lollipop. I had it in my mind to use that as a center, buy some whimsical white wire, some butterflies, and make it into a kind of…bouquet…thing.

The second idea won out. I bought a cute white lantern (they are so in right now it seems) with butterflies on it and decided to plan on what to do with it when I got home.

Cue that night. I tossed and turned, trying to decide how to make the lantern unique. At one point, I entertained the idea of going back to Michael’s the next day to buy the whimsical white wire and butterflies and go with the original idea. And then I came to my senses because I was getting married the next day.

Instead, I decided to make the lantern unique.

By adorning the inside with trinkets that represented meaningful memories to us. I put in a magnet from Seattle, where we met, a Packers hat (a mini one!), my painted Space Marine (John), and some dice. Did I also mention that we are Super Geeks?

To make it a little more fancy, I tied some velvet ribbon at the top as a handle, and voila!

It was great. It was so us. The photographer loved it. And we ended up using it as a centerpiece for our Exhibit (pictures and explanation to come later). The best part for me is that we can still use it! Take the artifacts back out, put them in their respective homes, and we can have a cute little decoration that will always remind us of that 3 minute ceremony that was our courthouse elopement.