The Wedding
Our anniversary is coming up soon, and lately I’ve found myself thinking about our wedding day.
It wasn’t a grand ballroom wedding or a lavish event with hundreds of guests.
It was home. 🌿
We were married with only about fifty of our closest friends and family gathered between the backyard and the house.
I cooked much of the food myself. Friends carried over dishes they had lovingly made. I bought flowers at the farmers market and arranged them in glass vases from a little discount store called Grandpa Pigeons.
I wore my mother’s wedding dress — fifty-five years old — carefully altered and brought back to life again for another generation.
My mother-in-law surprised us by renting an antique Rolls-Royce that carried us from the house to the church and then back home again.
And our two yellow labs, Toffee and Duchess, wore little white bows on their collars and wandered among the guests as part of the wedding too. 🐾💛
Looking back now, I realize the things I remember most are not perfection or extravagance.
I remember warmth.
I remember flowers in simple glass vases.
People carrying food into the kitchen.
Laughter moving through the backyard.
The feeling of home opening itself to the people we loved most.
Home was enough.
Love was enough.
Family was enough.
Beauty did not require excess.
It was old-fashioned.
Simple.
Personal.
Gentle.
And somehow, it became exactly the wedding I had always dreamed of.
Maybe the most beautiful things in life are not always the grandest ones.
Sometimes they are simply the moments where love is allowed to feel fully at home.
“Above all, love each other deeply.”
— 1 Peter 4:8
Helene
🌿💛 Rosemary Thyme
