Something Old...Something Borrowed

In your wedding you are supposed to have something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. Well fortunately for me, I already have two of those out of the way and they will probably mean the most to me in my wedding.

I've said before that Shannon and I are cousins. Technically, we are second cousins but I have never thought of her like a distant cousin because we are the same age so to me she was always just my cousin. Her mom is my cousin and my mom's neice.

My parents were married 42 years ago this September. When they got married, Anna (Shannon's mom) was their flower girl. Anna is also my godmother.

You must understand this about Anna...she is a pack rat. And not in a bad way either! She holds on to everything that has any kind of meaning to her. I think it must be a family trait that we all have because I too hold on to things. However, you can imagine my surprise when Shannon wrote me to tell me that Anna had hung on to the basket that she had carried at my mom's wedding 42 years ago.

Anna said that if I wanted, I could use the basket at my wedding because she knew it would mean a lot to me to have something from my mom. She has no idea exactly what that is going to mean to me. I know that for her to give me the basket was really hard because it was something that she had from her aunt and it meant something to her. But I am more than greatful that she is willing to share that piece with me and allow me to have something extra special be apart of my wedding.

Here are some pictures of the basket:

When Shannon emailed me the pictures I actually thought that it was a really big basket. As you can tell especially from this last picture, it's really really little. To give you an idea, it fits inside one of Dave's hats. Shannon had told Anna that I was going to paint it brown and she said she was ok with it. She agreed that it needed some paint (although she would have painted it white I to keep it the same I believe) but that it was something from my mom's wedding so it's ok that it looks older. When I went down to get the basket from her, I was shocked at how little it was. I told her again that I was going to paint it and you could see in her face that she really didn't want me to paint it, but she said it was ok. I just couldn't leave it not painted...it needed something you can see that 42 years has taken it's tole on it. I told Anna how much it meant to me although words really can't describe what it does mean to me.

I took it home with me the last time that we went to Winnemucca to show my sister because you can't see it that great in the pictures of my parents wedding where Anna is holding it. The more I thought about it and the more I talked about painting it, the less I wanted to do it. I got to thinking that if I painted it brown, that was somehow going to take away from what it was. My mom's was white, not brown and if I wanted it to be from my mom, it needed to stay as it was. I toyed with the idea and thought oh geez it's February, I have plenty of time. Well Allie, my niece who is going to be my flower girl, and I went to Wal-Mart. We decided to go look at some of the ribbon so we could make our basket pretty and we found the chocolate brown ribbon and two bows that were perfect for the sides. Her and I decided that we didn't want to paint it because we liked it just the way it was at Grammy's wedding. I know that this will make Anna very happy because it isn't being painted brown **

We brought it home and I made Dave start thinking of some ideas. He's pretty crafty like that and we decided that we would braid the ribbon around the handle and then wrap it around the little sides to add some color from our wedding, but keep the oldness of my mom's wedding. Here is how it turned out...

I think it turned out pretty good. Dave had the idea to braid the ribbon all the way from the bottom up the handle and then we decided to add the ribbon around the sides for a little more color. I know the bows are a little big for it but it's supposed to be a foofy flower girl basket so that's ok...they make it all nice and feminine. And I couldn't wait to see what it looked like with petals in it so I went and bought them tonight ( we are just using some silk ones) and they are so cute in there! It holds way more than what I thought!

Needless to say I am thrilled to have something old and something borrowed for me wedding that will mean a lot to me. THANKS SO VERY VERY MUCH ANNA!!!!

**I added these because as I was writing this post it occured to me that I could have painted it white so that it was the same color but at least all painted. After I decided I didnt' want to paint it brown, I forgot about painting it all together. Oh well where the paint is chipped off there are flowers to fill that area and you know what I like it just the way that 42 years made it...