Ranunculas

I love so many kinds of flowers but ranunculas really make me happy. I think I love them because they look so old-fashioned. They have the most beautiful bunchy petals and if you're lucky enough to see one open up, they reveal a large, what a think would be called, stigma inside. You don't see them too often but since we are in very early spring here in the NE, I've seen them at a few of the stands. My husband brought me a bunch the other night. Pink, of course. They have very bendy hollow stems so unless you are putting them in an arrangement with other flowers to hold them up, I find that cutting them down and placing them in tiny vases is a good way to preserve and display them.

So naturally, when I was getting married I wanted my bouquet to be made of ranunculas. Pink ranunculas. There were very few demands I had for my wedding: I wanted to be married outdoors in a garden, my dress was going to be lovingly handmade by my aunt, we needed an excellent photographer to document the day and my bouquet was to be made of pink ranunculas. After that, I was flexible and happy with the minimum. After all, it's about the marriage, not the flowers! But I'm getting off topic. So the florist assured me that ranunculas would be mine and they would be gorgeous. Cut to day before the wedding when she calls to say, no ranunculas. Okay. Trying to maintain the serenity one would prefer to have at this time, I said fine, roses will be fine. Being such a tiny thing in the grand scheme of life, the roses really were beautiful. However, I still pause when I see ranunculas and wonder what could have been..