A love of lavender

For the very first time, I am the proud owner of a lavender plant. Curt bought one for me a few months ago, and I am delighted that it is not only thriving, but gifting me with beautiful flowers this fall. That may seem insignificant, but my love affair with lavender has gone on for quite some time.

When Curt and I were planning our wedding, I wanted our flower to be lavender. We were married in late October--how perfect! I wanted dried lavender to be everywhere... my bouquet, the table centerpieces, the favors... We would be surrounded by that beautiful, calming scent and seeing as it was right in season and relatively inexpensive to begin with, we could have afforded a ton of it. Lavender in abundance. Simple, elegant, lovely.

But, like most of my plans, they rarely work out in real life like they do in my head. When I told Curt about my fabulous idea, he responded with, "I don't want anything dead at our wedding, including flowers." I tried to explain that they weren't dead, they were dried. To him, it didn't matter. He was completely against it. Sigh. Since it was our wedding and I wanted us to plan it together, I had to take his opinion to heart. Sadly, the idea was scrapped and we went with traditional floral arrangements for the bouquets, etc. Still beautiful, but not my first choice.

My sister and mother sprung into action for my bridal shower, however, and decided to make it lavender themed. Emily painted sprigs of lavender on the front of the invitations and my mother placed dried lavender just inside them. Nice, unless you are my best friend opening the invitation while eating a bowl of ice cream. Lavender sprinkles!!! Actually, that sounds kind of good... I got my fix surrounded by women who were important to me, but still fantasized about the idea of lavender everywhere. Maybe even one day I could have rows and rows of it growing in our backyard... Someday.

For now, I just have the one plant, but with time it will spread and I will have to come up with all kinds of fantastic ideas for how to use it. The other day, I cut some blooms and created this bundle to hang and dry. Perhaps it will become my very first Mommy Honesty giveaway. Stay tuned...