A garden offers so many metaphors for loving relationship. So if you’re either foodies or organic people, consider getting married at your local CSA (community supported agriculture) or at a small organic farm that provides food for your favorite restaurant or caterer. (and then of course, turn around and use that caterer or restaurant for your food!)
The garden offers the images of abundance. The love you have is transforming your life and allowing it to bloom and expand. The organic images are powerful metaphors for healthy living and growth. And then of course there’s the image of the garden as community – look at the number of vegetables or flowers that grow better in the company of other vegetables and protect each other from pests. Gardens are functional as well as beautiful. You know what? Marriage is as well!
Summer’s coming. Why not get married at the edge of a garden (keep your skirts a little shorter)? Not a flower garden, a vegetable garden. One in full production. Onions and peas sticking up out of the ground, just the way they’re supposed to. And lean on the metaphors the garden offers to create a wonderful wedding.
- Your wedding ceremony: Talk about the ways love sustains and enriches your life. Talk about the importance of the diversity of crops and how the community keeps you healthy and growing. Remind yourselves and your community that relationship just as a garden needs careful tending to thrive. And if you’re hoping to add children to your lives, your marriage is the garden in which your children will thrive.
- Your wedding vows: Part of your commitment to one another is to take care of your self and your partner by eating healthily. If you are people who are concerned about the earth, together you can commit to working for a healthier planet. Marriages with shared interests do well.
- Wedding ritual: Share healthy food with the understanding that part of what you offer one another is abundance and health. Whatever food you choose will become an important metaphor for the two of you. Whenever you eat it, you will remember how you felt sharing that food on the day you made your promises to one another.
- Food: obviously this is going to be important. Consider making a booklet about the foods you will be eating and the foodstuffs that are part of them. If the caterer is willing, share one or two of the recipes. If you have family recipes, this is always a good idea for a wedding.
- Table Decoration: Pots of greens or herbs, or a cornucopia of foods that will not perish and can be used later. (even donated). People can search through the tables for the picture that matches their plant!
- Charity: donate to the farm or give a box of vegetables to a shelter.
If the weather is right, sit at tables outside where you have a good view of the garden and the wildlife that keeps it humming. If it’s right for you, it will be a beautiful wedding. Your community will walk away saying, I’m so glad they did this, because it was perfect for them. That’s what you want. A perfect wedding that gives your marriage metaphors to live on forever!