M.I.L.K. Series

Moments of Intimacy Love & Kinship
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What does it take to sustain those number of years in a marriage. Well one married couple of 50 years summed it up by simply saying "Prayer, Patience, Compromise, Understanding and Commitment.

During the reception of the wedding we did this weekend we asked all the married couples to stand because the bride had a gift for the longest marrried couple. Out of all the weddings I've ever coordinated or attended this one had the most long term married couples in attendance.

As the count down of years began the joy of love filled the room with each couple who was still standing. The greatest number of years achieved was 50 with 3 other couples holding the torch of love and marriage for 47, 43 and 33 years. The youngest married couple besides the newlyweds of the day had 5 years in.

This portion of the reception was such a very touching and simply amazing moment. It warms my heart when you hear the stories of marriages that stood the test of time and continue to strive for a happy and loving marriage.

I haven't made the matrimonial commitment yet in life but when I do, I hope to honor the sanctity with longevity and a life long committed celebration of love and life with my mate.

To all you wonderful married couples out there, continue to love and honor one another....Wishing you many many wonderful blessed years!!!

In the many interest that I have and often continue to offer my services to wedding coordinating has always been on the sideline. I have always found great joy in assisting a new bride bring the love and beauty of her day to life through her wedding ceremony.

Yesterday, we had the pleasure of conducting a wedding rehearsal for Tara Jones and Graham Southerland in Baltimore. This lovely couple will be beginning their life as a union on Saturday, April 10 @ 4pm. One of the highlights of this rehearshal was the flower girl. She is simply adorable and so sweet. When explaining to her what she will need to do on Saturday, she stood there looking at me in pure innonence and disapproval of what I was asking her to do. She could not understand that it was okay for her to drop flowers on the floor and in the sanctuary at that. This simply made me smile. In her 5 years of life she has been taught the etiquette for the sanctuary as well as things that she should not do such as throwing things on the floor and leaving them there.  So as I demonstrated what she needed to do she was walking behind me picking up the flowers. As I continued to help her understand her duties, she would look over at her mom as if to say, you need to tell this lady she can not do this. So her mom came over and join in the conversation to give her the comfort that she needed to do what was being asked of her. Explaining that for this special occassion it was okay for her to throw the flowers on the floor in the sanctuary to honor her aunt and help her have a beautiful day. After this conversation she felt better about what she needed to do and practice with great enthusiam.

As rehearsl came to a close I stood back and smiled at those moments spent with the flower girl and how confusing her part of this process was to her. It also made me think about how sometimes the things we are asked to do makes no sense in our normal world but is often needed to be done as a part of a process for something we don't indulge in everyday. It also made me think what other things do we ask kids to do sometimes that confuses them but we ask them to do it without proper explaination to give them the comfort needed.

History of the Flower Girl
Throughtout the changing eras of fasion and even rols of the members of the traditional wedding party, the vision of the flower girl has remained even more consistent to humankind than that of the bride herself.

When brides were very young and stepping themselves from childhood to womanhood through the wedding ceremony, the flower girl leads her forward as a symbol of innocence "blooming" to become a wife and mother. In classical Roman and Greek times, the flower girl would scatter select herbs and grains to beckon fertility in a new union. Sheaths of wheat were carried in the wedding procession by medieval European flower girls.

For many genres, the only female attendants tot he bride were children. This tradition continues often with multiple flower girls in large society or royal weddings. In France, it is common that all attendants in the procession are children.

The flower girl that is now classic to the modern wedding world evolved through the Victorian beauty and sentiment nurtured through Queen Victoria herself. This is the bright young girl in white with perhaps a colored sash; carrying the decorated basket of petals and floral hoop.  The floral hoop, like it's circular relative, the wedding ring, symbolised eternal love.  With Victorian times, humanity begins to value the romantic aspects of marriage.  It is celebrated that marriage not only be econonic or even political union, but also a union of true love. And in love we all walked doe-eyed and innocent like the beautiful flower girl leading the wedding procession.

While fashion and tradition will forever evolve back and forth; the flower girl herself remains a consistent favorite with in the wedding party. She is the sentimental connection between childhood and womanhood; and the whimsical reminder to on-lookers of how magical and brief is innocence and childhood.

Our appreciation for the flower girl grows from pure sentiment: the beauty, innocence, whimsy, and of course how beautiful ist is to have both children and love within the family.

My beautiful oldest daughter: Diamond

Wishing a very "Happy Birthday" to my beautiful cousin Catina and my handsome nephew Dayvon.

My beautiful youngest daughter: Deja

A phone call from a friend just to say I love you.

Love: me & my significant other

The Heart of the Five Languages of Love by Gary Chapman

Sharing love is a learned behavior and we often have to experience the pain that sometimes comes with sharing love to better understand it as we move forward.

Will share what I feel was valuable for me in this book in a future post.