Dowries, Daffodils & Weddings

The stories in this column are true. Averett lives a dull life in rural Southside Virginia with his wife Management, two children and a rotating assortment of goats, dogs, cats, snakes and other local fauna.

Editor’s Note: Last weekend Management and I kept the herd of Grand-brats so the daughter and son-in –law could celebrate the anniversary of their wedding. We had fun. Below is the article I wrote regarding the wedding.

I had a fairly confusing weekend.  It started when I got home Friday night. My bride Management was decorating the church for the wedding and nobody was home.  I walked in the house and not only was the house spotless; the table was set in china, crystal and silver and most importantly none of my collection of stuff was in sight.. I thought I was in the wrong house.  I quietly backed out and was leaving when I realized even if it was the wrong house they had all of my stuff decorating the yard. I stayed to get my stuff back.  It turns out Management and the Godmother had achieved a miracle getting ready.

In answer to the question everyone keeps asking me regarding the daughter’s wedding, yes, I did shed a tear or two. In fact, almost everyone except the pastors cried. It was a very beautiful, happy and soggy event.

I intend to maintain that the reason I cried was that I had to GIVE the bride away. It just doesn’t seem businesslike to spend all of the time and expense of raising a daughter and then just give her away.   I am not even going to mention that difficult period called Tweenerhood when our children are between childhood and human and the emotional expense exceeds the financial cost of children.

I am somewhat relieved that the silly custom of having to give the prospective groom a dowry has become obsolete.  I can guarantee that would never happen.  I can see me telling a prospective son in law, “Let me get this straight.  You want my daughter AND you want me to pay YOU?  Why don’t we go out back and discuss this. You can help me dig a large hole while we are talking.  It needs to be six feet deep, two feet wide and … How tall are you anyway?”

I even checked with the family genealogist hoping to find a Native American ancestor.  Those folks had the right idea. “Bring me two horses and everything else you can find and you can have my daughter.”  I would have been very reasonable.  All I would have asked for was one grizzly bear skin.  It would be large-very large and gently strangled with his bare hands.   

I did meet all of my obligations regarding the wedding.  I wore a suit with a tie and provided the bushel of daffodils.  I did subcontract the actual picking thereof but more on that later.

We awakened on the morning of the wedding to discover there had been a freeze during the night. All of Management’s daffodils were frozen.  Now daffodils are pretty tough little critters but a hard freeze makes their little petals droop.  I had an anxious hour or two waiting for them to thaw.  I had already missed the opportunity of making a midnight flower run and since ours had looked so good I hadn’t even scouted suitable (meaning the owner doesn’t own a firearm or the flowerbed is out of range) alternate picking locations.

The girl child’s Godfather sent her a beautiful bouquet of daffodils but I was still a few dozen short.  Fortunately for me our daffys thawed and perked up and saved me from a morning of crime.

This is when the idea of subcontracting the actual picking occurred. The house was filled with friends and family who love our daughter as much as we, so I enlisted the whole crowd including the bride.

I took pictures.  I planted every one of those daffodil bulbs because Management loves them and I love Management. There are 32,000 bulbs in about a half-acre and if she wanted me to I’d cover the whole place with daffodils.  Anyway I thought it was appropriate for the folks who love the daughter to pick flowers that were planted with love to be used in her wedding to the man she loves.

Speaking of which, I can’t even describe the way the new son-in-law looked at my daughter during the wedding. If I had caught him looking at her like that before the wedding I would have been obligated to break his arms and legs in multiple places and then hurt him.

Fortunately by the time I realized what was happening they had been pronounced and announced husband and wife and had renounced all others and he is authorized by God and the Commonwealth of Virginia to look at her like that anytime he wants.

I hope it is often.  I recommend at least three times a day for the duration of the honeymoon, which should last fifty years or so.