Arranging Wedding Flowers

Yesterday some readers asked if I missed my friend and next door neighbor Laura's wedding on Sunday.

Yes, I did.   I felt very sick when I woke up Sunday morning.  My voice was a croak, and nobody would have wanted me there.  So I missed it, although I was lying on the bed with a window open when the ceremony started, and I propped myself up on one elbow and could see down into Laura's courtyard windows when her two daughters walked her to the living room. I heard bits of the ceremony, including a lot of laughter.

The day before, her daughters, Leah and Annika, arranged the wedding flowers in our kitchen, so I  got to see that, too.

They showed up at 8:20 on Saturday morning with three big boxes of flowers that they got up at the crack of dawn to buy at the Oakland Flower Mart, $400 worth:

There were a lot more flowers than this looks like:  spider mums, hydrangeas, and a whole lot else.  Annika was the project leader, and Leah and her friend Corinne (who now works at PBS headquarters in Washington, DC, and writes for the "The News Hour," sees Gwen Ifill!) were production assistants.

Here they are in action:

 Corinne (foreground) and Leah stripping leaves off stems

Annika putting the finishing touches on the first bouquet

Most of the flowers were white

 Line-up of finished bouquets

Small bouquets for centerpieces

Annika at work on the last two arrangements

Putting on the finishing touches

All this took nearly five hours.  Then they were off for manicures.  Later, they returned to carry the flowers downstairs to the cool of our basement  and clean up the kitchen.

All very fun.  I did come into the kitchen at one point and tell them that if they ever found a house they liked that had laminate kitchen countertops, THEY SHOULD BUY IT ANYWAY.