You are not going to believe this. I have not even one photo of daughter Josie and her husband Ryan from their wedding. I don’t even have any photos of Josie in her wedding dress. It seems that whenever it was time to take a photo I was either doing something or preparing to do something or listening so I didn’t miss anything. So we will have to suffice with the wedding cake topper which was hand-painted in their likeness.

I am working on getting a few images to share here from the professional wedding photographers that captured the moment for us. So we will see. In the mean time, I do have another interesting image of the Josie’s bouquet.

Josie’s shoes

and accessories.

Also, close to where I sitting at dinner was a sweet little girl who was resting in a bit of a tired daze on her dad’s lap.

This was one of the special things about Josie and Ryan’s wedding that was different from any I can remember from say 20 years ago. There were fifteen or so children at the wedding. Some of them were tiny babies of three months. Many of their parents had flown with them from as far away as Montreal or drove for 14 hours down the province of British Columbia. Not to ignore the participation of many grandparents and aunts and uncles who also supported in childcare at the wedding, but what was most amazing and pleasant was the active, relaxed and confident parenting of many of the children’s fathers. When I would be out scouting coffee at 6:30 or 7:00 am, there would be three or four fathers feeding small children and babies or taking them for an early morning walk so their mom’s could sleep. All day long and way into the evening there were dad’s packing children around, taking them to the bathroom and helping them solve problems while the mom’s were busy visiting or doing wedding things.

I commented on my observations to Josie and she said that the dads really wanted their wives to be able to enjoy themselves since they had come so far and it was their friend’s wedding and they didn’t want them to be all exhausted and stressed out trying to do all the parenting on top of everything else. And Josie and Ryan for their part had organized babysitters for evenings so both parents could relax. Now how wonderful is all that? And a welcomed change in general parenting practices from what I observed when my children were small.

It was a beautiful relaxing, fun wedding in the most amazing ocean-side setting at Brentwood College. The weather was fantastic, the 140 family and friends had a marvelous time and the bride and groom’s wedding day was perfect.

Sprout Question: Have you ever been so focused in the present that you  completely miss a creative moment?

© 2010 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

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Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.

From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada