This is a little story about a mishap in the planning of our own wedding three years ago. At the time it wasn’t all that funny, but now we can laugh at it and even appreciate it! We had a lot of DIY elements to our wedding because we wanted to save money and also include friends and family in the planning process. One of the things we did was grow our own Stargazer lilies to be used for our reception centerpieces. My mom had a co-worker that would grow them in her yard and would always be bringing in these beautiful lilies to work. So we had the idea to grow our own in our yard to use for our centerpieces. So we ordered 200 bulbs, thinking we would get a least 1-2 blooms or so from each. We planted them all in my parents backyard a few months before the wedding, so that they would bloom about a week or so before the wedding. After we planted them, we anxiously waited for them to sprout through the dirt. But after a few weeks, we were starting to wonder why only a handful had started to sprout.

So we went out to where we planted them and started digging around to see what was going on. We dug down to where the bulbs were, but we couldn’t find any bulbs! Say what?! We would stick our hand down in the dirt where we had planted them to only find a little empty pocket, but no bulb! And this was the case for every single bulb we planted! Turns out, voles ate them! All 200 of them!! It was so heartbreaking to know that all the hard work we had put into these were just gone!! So now we’re only a couple months from the wedding and our plan for the centerpieces was ruined. We knew we probably didn’t have enough time to plant them again and them be ready for the wedding. So we ended up just ordering the same lilies in bulk from Sam’s Club to have delivered to the house the week of the wedding. So we still had our lily centerpieces, but it was as special as it would have been had they been grown in my parents yard. But when we realized all the bulbs were gone, we went ahead and ordered about 50 or so more bulbs to plant, just in case they bloomed in time. We planted them in pots this time to avoid the vole issue.

So these ones grew just fine and actually ended up blooming right around the wedding date. So it seems that we may have been a little off in the first place about when they were supposed to bloom. So here’s the silver lining to this story. Since we planted these a little later than the original ones, they now bloom right before our wedding anniversary every year! These pots sit in the front yard of my parents house and every year since the wedding, they bloom right about a week before our anniversary! Whenever we go to our parents house in the weeks leading up to our anniversary, we see the lilies starting to sprout. They kind of serve as a countdown to our anniversary! It’s kind of like when you put flamingos in someones yard to tell the world that it’s their birthday. When the Smith house front yard is full of lilies, everyone knows that it’s our anniversary! And the best part is that as they start to bloom, my mom will cut them for us to take home. So for the week or two surrounding our anniversary date, our house is FILLED with lilies! Coming home to a dining room table full of lilies is just wonderful! These lilies allow us to celebrate and reflect on our anniversary not only on the actual date, but the weeks surrounding it as well! It has really made our anniversary feel that much more special. And the fact that this all happened because of an unfortunate accident makes for a great story! And when we move to a house one day, we’ll be able to take these pots to put in our yard and watch them grow every year!

So that’s just a little story about how a little wedding planning mishap turned into something wonderful! So for those of you that are planning your own wedding, don’t get bogged down when something goes wrong. It could turn into a beautiful story that makes your wedding that much more special!