Anyways, so Rapha placed THE ORDER. It's not that I don't appreciate the help (actually, I will more appropriately say, the gesture, since placing the order would only be helpful if done right), especially when I find ordering flowers nothing but frustrating and platitudinal. I also had other more pressing matters...like studying for the Florida Bar Exam which is undoubtedly the single most obnoxious exam I've ever taken and will ever take. As far as all things atrocious, the Bar Exam is second only to dealing with the Board of Bar Examiners (that's a blog post for another day).
Alright, the deed is done. A dozen peonies (pronounced Pee-on (like only)-eez by me and Pee-o-neez by everyone else) are being shipped for Jim the nice, but over-the-top florist only knows, at $10 a stem. I may not dwell in flowers, but I know a good bloom when I see it, if price is any indication.
After the minor panic attack, stemming for my need to be in control of everything and lack of trust that a man could possibly be trusted with this assignment, I call Jim just to reinterate the details of the order and get assurance that if anything should come up it will be I who is called and not Rapha. I instruct that if in doubt I'd rather the phoned and asked than surprised. Simple, enough, right?
Have I mentioned how I lack the slightest bit of good luck??? Well, I am the living breathing personification of the phrase of "When it rains it pours." Endorsing the concept of Karma, I truely believe that I must have been a dog-killer in my previous life (whom I find to be the most despicable kind of person). The tendency I have toward foresight, combined with my slight OCD compulsion, does nothing to mitigate the fallout that inevitably happens at most, if not all, major events in my life. I would take a leap of faith and say, that most people consider their wedding, if not their marriage (lol, funny that they are actually NOT one and the same or even synonymous) to be one of the most important events in one's life.* I find that it is a momentous occasion for the simple fact that you're life, as you knew it is gone, past, over...never to be enjoyed again. So since this is the "big one," the one big event in my life(I can say that now, with all accuracy and honesty, because children aren't included in any plans I have for the next, oh let's say, until my hopefully not very fertile eggs are depleted), and given my luck, or lack thereof, I should pray for bad, expect worse, and be prepared for worst, right? I did...or at least I convinced myself that I had. Of course, I wasn't.
The day before the Big Day, I get a text picture of my beautiful and only hopefully noteworthy accessory. WTF!?!? Not only were the bulbs (in case you didn't know, peonies come in bulbs the size of a walnut, if not smaller) were not opened, there was offensive green something added to the bouquet and the stems were approximately 16 inches long. I panic for multiple reasons:
1) I was panicing already, so what the hell?
2) What the hell is that green stuff? I would tell you, at this point, but I still don't know.
3) Why are the stems long enough to use a teeball bat?
4) Why are the bulbs still closed. I didn't want a bouquet to plant.
5) Seriously, one piece of ribben loosely wrapped around the ridiculously long stems???
I curse, scream a bit, tear up and then dial up Rapha. Then I scream a lot, mostly at florist vicariously through Rapha, the at Rapha for not being as upset as I am. I mean, this is a big fucking deal. HUGE! The end-of-the-world kind of crisis. In hindsight, I'll admit that okay, the world would have gone on regardless of my bouquet being deplorable or not, BUT that isn't the point. The point since Rapha and the Joe, the Florist, decided to take it upon themselves to pick out the bouquet the Rapha and Joe, the Florist, had better figure out between themselves how to fix their huge f...flipping mistake. This should not be my problem, even though it obviously was, as Rapha couldn't have cared less.
Another hour of cursing and screaming; one insanely polite, although distraught, phone call to Florist; and 2 hours of silence between my "dearly beloved" and me; the loathsome bouquet that would have never made it down the aisle, or even to LC, were rearranged, hand-opened, shortened, wrapped in cascading ribbon and chilled, to be delivered the next day.
Some may wonderI would choose to write a post about my bouquet instead of any other aspect of my wedding and I too, sometimes wonder, why those damn frivolous flowers are always prevalent in any memory of the wedding. Maybe, the not-so-fond memories are always more prevailing (which could explain the exuberant number of divorces these days). Maybe, I remember those flowers because it was the first time that I was upset and Rapha metaphorically laughed at me. Perhaps it is because for the first time in my life, I felt like a typical needy, dramatic, woman and the simularity between my wedding all those episodes of bridezilla (of which I pitied the fiance and hated the bride) where finally ringing true. I don't know why I focus on the damn flowers, but as I explained to Rapha, days later, when my relatively rational state-of-mind (relative, because I was still working and studying for the Bar) it should have mattered to everyone that I mattered to, because it mattered to me. And, because, DAMMIT IT WAS MY WEDDING DAY. So rational, logical, realistic, perfect perspective thinking...screw you.
In case you were wondering, the wedding was memorable for many other reasons and was, of course, one of the happiness days of our lives, in spite of my bad luck, bad karma, and lack of foresight that day. For visual confirmation, see below.
*Just a side note: My theory on the two is: The wedding is for "them" and the marriage is for "us".
