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Photo by Bella Pictures
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One year ago on August 1, right here in the orchard under a cathedral tent where apple and pear trees circled us, we witnessed the marriage of a woman and a man. They, Lesley and Brian, with their grandpas and Lesley's dad, planted a Wedding Plum tree, not a tradition I've heard of specifically with plums, but when we decided to plant a tree in the orchard as a symbol of a new life together, Don asked what fruit it should be. "A plum, it has to be a plum," I said. During Lesley and Brian's ceremony, Nature contributed its perfect gift: a warm, tender rain that watered the Wedding Plum.-
In the spring, it blossomed.
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Today, one year later, there is ONE plum on the Wedding Plum tree, one solitary singular sole unique significant plum. I find this to be a very plum plum (remember Hana feeding a plum to the English Patient, scraping the fruit from the skin with her teeth and feeding it to him as if he was a baby bird?). The bride and groom will be here in a few days from NYC, and they will have to decide what to do with this dandy plum -- maybe eat it like a bride and groom going after the same piece of wedding cake, slobber slobber. There was no unity candle at the wedding, remember those? There was a unity plum tree.
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August 1, 2009 was among the happiest days of my life. To see our precious daughter joined with a man who is perfect for her, to gain a new son whom we adore, to be surrounded with family and friends, to have planned and prepared for this celebration right here where we live and have it turn out better than we could have hoped (so much love, you could feel the energy, like a beautiful veil), even with "dreaded" rain that turned out to be a surprising gift, was just stupendous! (Here's my original post of the wedding.)-
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Don, me, Lesley, Brian & Peter
Photo by Bella Pictures
Photo by Bella Pictures
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These silly Japanese beetles heard that it was Wedding Plum Day, and so they . . . . um . . . . celebrated. First they made some wedding lace in the plum tree leaves. Then they had a wedding . . . type . . . unifying embrace. Isn't that charming? (Personally, I think they should hide behind their lacy leaf veil.)-
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60 comments:
Ruth, what a happy memory. I enjoyed reading your prep posts and all the plans and decorations and work that went into the day. You treated us all as guests and it was almost as good as being there.
The plum is a sure sign of hope and promise and what a totally positive vibe for your kids!
Congratulations.
Oh, my goodness!! These pictures are just gorgeous!!
Thank you, my sweet Mommy!! I can't believe it's been one year since that beautiful and memorable day. I'm so happy that we will get to celebrate with all of you! And the wedding plum tree just looks amazing!! I think we should have a ceremonious eating of the plum while we're there. We can all have a piece.
Also can't wait to give you your album!!
I love you.
Well, if you only get to have one plum, it must be perfect, and that one surely fits the part.
You and your daughter are both so beautiful and you share the same smile!
Oh my.
I love all the pictures.
I love that the positioning of the planting of said plum tree was moved due to the rain.
I love that ONE plum grew on the tree.
I love that I was there.
I love your family and my girl Lesley.
p.s. I love that Don was holding the cat and showing it the plum tree.
The end.
Thank you so much! Great pictures of the tree.
Can't wait to see it and you in a just a few days.
And what a plum plum it is! What a lovely tradition and a beautiful family. (by the way, we could be sisters, or doppelgangers)
How perfect. The photos are gorgeous, the first one with the barn in the background is especially magnificent. Sometimes life graces us with something as simple and wonderful, whole, round, plump and singular as a solitary plum on the first anniversary of your daughter's wedding. Other gifts, like finding a plum leaf made into wedding lace by the Japanese beetles only comes to someone with a poetic sensitive eye.
I like it that we were both posting on plums within minutes of each other. Chance? Nawwwh. After all your blog is synch-ro-ni-zing, not co-in-ci-dence or hap-pen-stance.
That's sweet! and how significant to have one plum for the first anniversary. Even nature is blessing the couple :)
I vote for a ceremonial eating of the plum, too. Such a lovely post of a beautiful, glowingly happy family! (Well, except Bishop. He looks a bit skeptical. How apropos, for him as you've described him.)
Hi, and thank you, California Girl. Sharing the day with you increased my enjoyment of it many fold. I can't believe it's been a year!
Hi there, Book Chick! Thank you for your kind visit. I love taking pictures at the farm. Of course two were taken by the professional photographer, Mihaela Avasiloaie, at Bella Pictures.
Wesrey, that would be wonderful. No knife, just bites. I can't wait to hold my album and look at actual pages. I so enjoyed going back through the pictures online the last couple of days to find the ones I posted. So much joy. I love you.
I know, Pat, having that one perfect plum is tremendous. Thank you for your kind comment. Yes, sometimes people say how much Lesley and I look alike, and sometimes she and Don. I think Peter looks like me with short hair.
Mah Shell, one of the best things of the day was YOU.
I love your list.
Brian, just five more days. Are you bringing your wedding suit for the plum ceremony?
Thank you, willow. And thank you for the compliment too. I think I got the better end of that comparison - - you have such classic beauty, those cheekbones, wow.
Thank you for your kindness, Lorenzo. There are layers of this plum that keep revealing themselves. Like I hadn’t even thought about it being one plum for one year, duh. I had only gotten as far as united as one. Do you suppose next year there will be two plums?
It really is something that we both posted about plums within minutes, especially that you noted in your comment at yours that you had been touched by our wedding plum planted in the rain. I love it.
Mystic, it's so lovely, isn't it? It is such a wonderful way to round out the anniversary year. Just think, Lesley and Brian will tell their children about this one day.
Thank you, J.G., it's settled then. We will have a plum plum ceremony. Maybe there will be a parade!
The wedding plum has come full circle...I love the synchronicity...the loveliness of that plum matching the loveliness of the bride. It is perfection.
I can see that Bishop has the proper reverence in his demeanor. ;)
Susie, yes, such a good round plum. Don't you wonder how it tastes?
Bishop, and everyone else at the farm, supports this tree. :)
Beautiful pictures. I love that plum. I enjoyed the wedding with you last year. The pictures were wonderful. Happy Anniversary to Lesley and Brian.
That is such a perfect looking plum!
If it must be sliced, you need a elegant knife, say a mother-of-pearl, it deserves nothing less.
beautiful couple and you too!! what a wonderful detailing of your beautiful tree.
i can remember the plum tree in our backyard - i loved picking them and savoring them as i read my books.
This is a heartwarming post, Ruth. You have a lovely family, for which I know you are grateful. Being somewhat solitary myself, notwithstanding my own lovely family, I can really relate to that single plum.
Ruthie
Life is good.
A sublime plum given as a first anniversary gift....Japanese Beetles mating in front of lacy leaves.
Yes!
I love your blog!
Happy Anniversary to Brian and Lesley.
Happy Anniversary, Lesley and Brian!
The first, perfect plum in honor of the first, perfect year! That is true synchronicity.
I don't know what else to say, except that I am happy for all of you.
The wedding plum tree planing & lace leaves were beautiful. I've heard of planing a tree to celebrate the birth of a baby, but never for a wedding. Love the idea.
Your family is beautiful. Congrats to them on their anniversary & may there be 2 plums next year.
PS: I can't imagine the day my children get married. Hopefully it won't be for at least another 15 years...gives me time to prepare.
Congratulations!
What a beautiful day filled with beautiful people!
Old barns and tin roofs:
outposts of the memorious past;
their hard lines soften to
plum-round ogives of the now.
Something so significant about a single plum on a first anniversary..dontcha think??? Congrats on the first year!!!
Why haven't you shown pictures of yourself before? :-) You are stunning!!
How lovely that there was a single plum on the first anniversary.
I can't believe that the wedding was a year ago. Semms like only a few months.
What a lovely post. I remember your post last year – those were exciting times. My mother grew an apricot tree in the little house she had after moving away from Paris. The first year it had 2 apricots, so she placed them in a bottle of “eau de vie” (brandy) and this way she said she could taste the apricot, a tiny bit at a time, for a long time. My grandfather used to place an empty bottle on top a pear blossom and the fruit would grow in the bottle, then he would fill it with brandy so that’s maybe were she got the idea. It’s a beautiful plum. And you are very attractive and photogenic, that photo of you is very nice.
Congratulations to you all... what a beautiful moment and photos. And oh, Ruth, you have pointed out something that I've been thinking of these few days, when I eat (store-bought) plums. That's exactly what I have in mind: Hannah softly stuffing juicy bits of plum into the mouth of the English Patient. That image to me is purely sensual, not bird feeding bird :). With that in mind, that single plum just has to be shared by the young couple... how sweet!
To think this was a year ago, Ruth, totally blows my mind. Look at what has happened in a year's time. I know remembering that day thrills you, as it does me. Everything came together into a perfect event. I love how you have remembered it here, around the plum tree. Maybe one year you can do Vagabonde's idea of adding the brandy. If so, I hope I get to taste it. :)
Shari, such a well-loved plum will taste even better.
Violetski, somewhere, packed away, is the mother-of-pearl knife and server from our wedding 32 !/2 years ago. I wonder if we can find it.
Char, eating plums, reading, summer -- what's better? Thank you for your kind comment.
Thank you so much, George.
It makes me smile that you connect with the single plum so personally. I am a loner too, within a loving family.
Thank you, dear Gemma. We both posted about daughters marrying. And yes, we miss them when they find their happiness and move away.
Thank you, dear DS. Your happiness multiplies mine. xoxo
Terresa, thank you for your kind comments. This loop of a year closing feels just right after the happiest of weddings.
I didn't have much in my head for our kids' weddings as they grew up. When Lesley was ready to design theirs, I had a blast, along with Don, filling in between her lines. The ultimate joy was that people felt relaxed, welcome and connected with each other and with Lesley & Brian.
so symbolic.. but you know what I can't get over is how much alike your daughter and Brian seem to you and Don.. it is amazing...
Thank you, Montag, and what a beautiful arc of a verse you added to our celebration. I had to look up ogive (thought maybe you mistyped "olive"), and I am happy to meet a new word, and to know it is like saying "Oh, jive." It's a gorgeous alchemy from the pointed arch of the barn, into full and complete roundness of a plum. Lovely, my poet friend.
Ruth, This is the first I've heard of the unity tree as I didn't make your acquaintance until well after that special day last summer. Like everyone else, I think it's wonderfully symbolic that the tree has produced a single plum (although I would have thought it equally symbolic had it sprouted two!) and really enjoyed reading this post.
This is the first photo I've seen of you and Don and you are a very, very handsome couple. Your lovely girl has a smile just like yours and everyone looks beautifically happy.
You and Ginnie certainly share a love of life. It radiates from you both like sunshine.
Yes, Marcie, I do, I do!
I was so taken with your raspberry parfait and lapis blue layers today, I am soothed enough for the week, I'm pretty sure.
By the time I finally read this and sit down to comment that plum may well be shared already:)...It is rather an amazing thing that one perfect plum has grown for this anniversary...and in that photo it does look perfect! I love your idea of planting a fruit tree as part of the wedding celebration...so much nicer than a candle. We planted trees given to us by my sister at the birth of each of our daughters...another reason it will be difficult to move from this old house.
Well thank you, Helena. :) Actually I have snuck a few pics in of myself here and there.
Babs, I'm pinching myself too, that it's been a year. (As I age, the years fly faster and faster.)
Vagabonde, thank you very much. Yes, Don and I have heard of pear brandy, and we've wondered if we could make it ourselves. He looked it up once. I like the idea of it very much.
And Happy Anniversary to you and your husband too.
Arti, when you put it that way, maybe they should share it in private. ;-)
Boots, if we make it, will you come? :)
I will never, ever forget how much you did to help us for our big day. You deserve pear brandy by the case.
Hello, dear Gwen. I had not thought about how we are alike as couples, that is interesting! Sometimes Peter too has a beard, and we think we have the three billy goats gruff. :)
Gail, it is a very good tradition for babies too. They can watch the tree grow as they grow, and feel connected to the earth. One year in Istanbul we had a live Christmas tree, and our doorman planted it in the yard of the apartment building. A couple years ago Don saw how big and tall it had grown on Google Earth. The doorman, Haydar, named it "Nesley-han" which was what many Turks called Lesley, since that Turkish name sounded like hers.
Deborah, (oops, a little out of order I am), you are such a dear person, friend and a magnificent writer. I'm thrilled to have met you here, and I love that you connected also with my sister, and with my non-biological sister Susie.
Thank you for your kind words. I must say that I feel remarkably fortunate to have such a happy, loving family. I love sharing them here.
Wonderful post and congrats to Lesley and Brian for their first year together. Beautiful imagry as usual when I come here. Love those plum blooms. oh la la, I must look closer at those blooms...and those beetles, well...hmmmmmph....they could have been a little more private.
Loved this post.
Hehe, Sandy, closer up on the blooms and farther back on the beetles, right? :D
hI Ruth what a great idea and yay the kids are coming to visit. One plum how precious. Maybe we will copy your idea and plant a tree this fall when my son gets married.
Love your dress, I bought "party pants" and a jacket for my mom of the groom outfit. Too funny when i tried on the shirt/jacket a second time the button popped off and i decided i liked the jacket better open with a tank underneath:)
Peace my friend.
Cathy, oh, that would be wonderful if you planted a tree too. So this must be an outdoor affair for your son too.
Cool. Party pants, comfy and elegant. I like how your outfit evolved too. :D
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