Every year Rochester,NY holds the World's largest Lilac Festival!"The Lilac King"[a friend of mine] has produced a "Navy Blue"Lilac in the name of President Lincoln[his favorite President].[google-"The Lilac King"to see it].

I love lilacs and was always going to get married in May so that I could use daffodils and lilacs as my flowers! Decided on September instead, darn it....

My deep purple, French lilac just finished blooming. It puts the regular lavender variety to shame. Off to google the Lilac King.

P.S. Lilacs were a favorite of the Victorians, and many a path to the outhouse was lined with lilacs to cover the odors! Just spoiled that thought for you, didn't I? They also grew high enough to obscure the view of that charming little facility.

Thanks, Herb! I love lilac and have never seen one of such blue color! Beautiful!
   
I also love Whitman's elegy:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rPferUNflkg
...whereas Hindemith, well, for me is a bit too depressing:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fx3hpEyUF80

Laurie, what flowers did you use instead?

You can also-google-"Doc Lilac".

Beautiful. Eva, I also thought of Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd."

Eva,Thanks for the Technology of being able to post the picture of-"The President Lincoln"Lilac! The best place to Google is-"Doc Lilac".Herb

That's where I found it, Herb: http://www.lilachillnursery.com/varieties

(05-16-2014 06:25 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Thanks, Herb! I love lilac and have never seen one of such blue color! Beautiful!

I also love Whitman's elegy:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rPferUNflkg
...whereas Hindemith, well, for me is a bit too depressing:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fx3hpEyUF80

Laurie, what flowers did you use instead?

I went totally out of season and upscale with a big cascade of white orchids with a tinge of purple, white carnations, baby's breath, and greenery - with bunches of green grapes tucked in. I did keep to my yellow and lavender theme, however, with my attendants in lavender with similar cascades of flowers in shades of lavender and yellow with purple grapes tucked in. My flower girl was in yellow with lavender smocking, and the groom and groomsmen wore lavender shirts. The four-tired cake was fantastic with golden sugar bells, white swans, clusters of lavender sugar grapes, and fresh flowers at the top surrounding a silver cross. If I knew how to scan photos, I'd send you some. Beautiful wedding - bad marriage.

Laurie,You were such a"Renegade",but you are a "Legend"in your own time!-Herb

(05-17-2014 12:30 PM)L Verge Wrote:  

(05-16-2014 06:25 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Thanks, Herb! I love lilac and have never seen one of such blue color! Beautiful!

I also love Whitman's elegy:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rPferUNflkg
...whereas Hindemith, well, for me is a bit too depressing:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fx3hpEyUF80

Laurie, what flowers did you use instead?

I went totally out of season and upscale with a big cascade of white orchids with a tinge of purple, white carnations, baby's breath, and greenery - with bunches of green grapes tucked in. I did keep to my yellow and lavender theme, however, with my attendants in lavender with similar cascades of flowers in shades of lavender and yellow with purple grapes tucked in. My flower girl was in yellow with lavender smocking, and the groom and groomsmen wore lavender shirts. The four-tired cake was fantastic with golden sugar bells, white swans, clusters of lavender sugar grapes, and fresh flowers at the top surrounding a silver cross. If I knew how to scan photos, I'd send you some. Beautiful wedding - bad marriage.

Beautiful description. We didn't have flowers at our wedding. We'd spent the summer alternating mountain climbing and desert canyon hiking out west, knowing that when we hit Las Vegas we would get married. We did the deed in a sleazy wedding chapel (no longer in existence) with stained glass windows made out of cheap colored plastic panels you can buy for your bathroom shower door quite reasonably at any local lumber supply store. Oh, and we forgot you needed a witness, so we ran outside and bribed a wino to come in and join the fun. He scrawled his name across our marriage certificate and left. True story.

I love it, Blaine! That's the stuff that movies are made of. Was there piped-in Elvis music in the background?

Herb, I never thought of myself as a renegade, but you should have seen the reaction in my family and community when I sent out lavender wedding invitations with my own wording. I was the first not to do the traditional white invitation, and you would have thought I had committed a cardinal sin. According to an aunt and uncle, however, my cardinal sin was marrying a divorced Catholic. They were heavily into the Masons and the Eastern Star, so anyone with a Catholic background in those days was looked down on. Bringing a divorced man into our Episcopalian family was another no-no.

On the opposite side, however, my husband's former priest in WV refused to let my in-laws publish our wedding notice in the local papers because we were "living in sin" according to him. A year later, he tried the same argument when we wanted to announce the birth of our daughter. That time, grandpa had enough. He was pure Italian, and no one (not even his priest) was going to tell him that his granddaughter was a bastard in the eyes of the church.

One more religious issue in my autobiography that I'm trying out on y'all now: My family has been Episcopal since 1899, when my grandmother forsook the Methodist faith of the Huntts for the Episcopal faith of her new husband. Every religious event in my life has centered around the Episcopal Church. But, it almost didn't happen when it came time to get married. Because my fiance was a divorced Catholic, I was (at first) denied the right to be married in front of the altar at my home church - where my mother had been confirmed and married, and where I had been baptized, confirmed, and the organist since I was twelve-years-old.

Because I had been the organist for so long, my mother was a tad upset. She contacted the Bishop of Washington and got permission for me to get married in the church in front of the altar - but our priest could not marry us. We ended up being married by a Lutheran minister, who was allowed to read from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, and as soon as we were announced as husband and wife, my Episcopal priest could come on the altar and deliver the blessings of my church. Talk about screwed up religious principles! There are many ways to show discrimination against people based on things other that race and culture...

(05-18-2014 11:15 AM)L Verge Wrote:  Was there piped-in Elvis music in the background?

No Elvis; that cost extra. Actually, the highlight was applying for the wedding license. The county clerk's office was downtown and at that time they had a special window open 24/7 (kind of like for a concert or an athletic game). The line was quite long and we were amused by the couple ahead of us. The prospective bride kept asking her soon-to-be husband over and over what his name was.

The recent posts just reminded me of the Lincolns' wedding day, and of this wonderful site on this topic:
http://rogerjnorton.com/Lincoln49.html

Laurie and Houmes,Somehow,I can picture your weddings now.My wedding was the day after Easter.Our flowers were leftovers! 1969

My father would definitely have approved of your flowers, Herb. My mother was a flower freak, so she literally walked into the flower shop and told the florist that she wanted to spend $500 on the flowers for the bride, attendants, corsages for mothers and grandmothers, boutonnieres for the men, decorations for church and reception hall, and anything else he could throw in. That was a lot of money in 1972. My father knew to keep his mouth shut!

When we got divorced, she laughingly asked me if I thought it was too late to get her money back. After eleven years. yeah, probably so!