Leaping for Your Dreams

I was blessing the day that Mario offered me this job. He and Ray had made it clear that I was not only to make use of the office as much as possible while planning Sid and Aleks’ wedding, but my staff as well. This was the _best idea they could have ever given me.

Moka had taken over dealing with the vendors, giving me things I needed to deal with in pieces instead of having to make all the decisions all at once. Stace had taken over the reception tables, music, flowers and in general the whole look of the wedding. Stefan, had taken to being the Uber Secretary like, well a player to the ice. It was completely second nature for him.

Stace knocked on my door and came in. “You said you wanted to talk to me today about flowers.” She came in with a couple books and a notepad and sat down. “I’ve been doing some thinking. What if every flower actually meant something?”

I did my best _not to laugh in her face as I answered. “Then I _know Aleks will love us. She has always loved the language of flowers. So much that one year for his birthday she got Sid the book and a bunch of flowers to decipher. It’s part of the reason he doesn’t deal with them well; he’s not really good at it.”

Stace giggled. “My god he might be human after all. He’s bad at something, that’s the first I’ve heard.” She opened one of the books and began leafing through it. “It’s a fascinating topic. Who knew you could speak only by exchanging flowers.”

I smiled. “Aleks. She’s _very good at it. Sid can use the book and look things up when he wants to but he normally doesn’t have the time.” I pulled out my own worn copy. “I’m no slouch either. I happen to know that as long as no negative flowers are around, Aleks will probably love it. As much purple as we can get too, I mean they _are NHL royalty.” We spent the next hour planning a flower menu so to speak, everything from a simple forget-me-not to orchids to all the different meanings behind different colors of roses.

Stefan came in at one point and just shook his head. “Ladies, this can either be difficult or simple. Simple but complex is what you’re looking for correct?” We nodded. He took the book and began looking up a bridal bouquet. “Start simple, Roses are easy. Entwined red and white for unity is best. Then add in purple ones for enchantment and then lavender tulips for love. Stephanotis for marital bliss, it’s also the Hawaiian wedding flower of choice so that’s a nice thing too. Add in some ivy for fidelity, friendship, and affection. Baby’s breath for innocence and purity of heart cause they’ll add that anyway. Add some Lavender so there’s some calmness in her, Mistletoe for surmounting difficulties, some Statice for loyalty and orchids for beauty and honeysuckle for the bonds of love. There, it means something, looks great and she’ll love it.”

I was impressed. “Ok you, what about the guys?” Boutonnières were always a pain.

Stefan looked at the flowers he had chosen for the bridal bouquet and grinned. “Ivy as a back drop, stephanotis and lavender tulips. Love, fidelity, friendship, affection, and marital bliss. Add some Statice for loyalty and a purple rose for enchantment for Sid’s, making it a bit larger.” He looked up. “Then add some passionflower to the parents for faith and belief and you’ve got theirs. Do you know who her attendants are?”

I laughed. “Myself and Vero. So what would you use for us, oh flower man?”

He smirked, actually smirked! “Red and yellow entwined roses for joy, happiness and excitement. Stephanotis, lavender, Ivy, baby’s breath, the purple tulips, and some honeysuckle. For the tables have violets for faithfulness and forget-me-nots for true love in and around the candles and wine, in little pots as favors.” He just solved that problem as well.

“Oh my god that solves the next problem! You’re a genius! Those could even be seed packets for easy traveling. We could easily make favors with those.” Again I sent up a thankful prayer to whomever brought this man to my office.

“We could do up favors of all of the flowers in seed packets. I’m sure we could order them if we looked. Do you want me to do that?” Stace now looked relieved. She had a fast and sure idea of how she could incorporate this into the tables.

I called Sid. “Hey, it’s me. Is Aleks around too?” He put me on speaker. “Stefan had an incredible idea for favors. Seed packets of the flowers used all tied together with a card that has what they all mean. Before I run with this idea, I wanted to check that it was a good one.”

Aleks gasped. “Mari that’s a great idea! Wait, I don’t know what flowers were using yet.” Sid chuckled.

“We’ve got it planned, you’ll love it I know it. Roses in several colors, Stephanotis, Ivy, tulips, baby’s breath, lavender, Mistletoe, Statice, Orchids, Honeysuckle, and passionflower.” As I listed off the flowers we had decided on, I hoped that she would indeed love the choices we had made. “We were thinking of adding violets and forget-me-nots to the table originally but the seed packet idea would make it easier to travel.”

“I love it! Oh my god I could kiss you for all of this Mar!” I breathed a sigh of relief as Aleks’ joy was plain. “Add the violets and forget-me-nots to the bouquets and make the favors all seed packets from those ones and we’ve got a winner!”

I looked at Stefan and nodded. He left the room to begin making calls to find seed packets. “That’s great guys. Sorry to bug you but I felt that you needed to ok this.”

Sid chuckled again. “You’ve just told her that her flowers are ones that will make sense to her, that the reception details are on schedule _and cut down on the list of things you gave me to talk to her about. You’ve made _both of our days.”

I laughed. “I hope you realize that I’m going to be bringing my staff and their significant others so that you can thank them all in person. Besides they’ll help keep _all of us sane the day of. You get your list done today and we’ll be golden.”

Aleks giggled. “Bring whomever you need Mari! I love you _so much for doing this for us so quickly. We’ll rock out our list today and get it back to you as soon as possible.”

I hung up after saying goodbye. “You heard her, make it happen!”

Stace grinned. “I’ll go call the florist and make sure everything is as we specified. She sounds so happy about everything.”

I smiled. “Deep down Aleks is a very simple girl at heart. She wants to play hockey, love her man openly and deeply and in time raise their children to do the same. Anything after those things is gravy in her book.” Stace laughed and left my office.

Once I was alone I started, once again checking off things on the Wedding to do list… Once Sid and Aleks got their list of things to do done, we’d be right on schedule with how things should go for wedding with a longer planning time. I used the time to go through the book and pick out the meanings for each of the flowers we were using individually. I typed it all up on my computer so that when we knew what seeds we could get I could easily get those cards made.

I decided that instead of lunch coming to me, I was going to it today. I let Stefan know to forward only the important calls to me, like emergency ones. Moka and Stace were in full agreement that I needed to be at home having some family time and enjoying the off-season. I left not at all worried about how things would be while I was gone. What my team couldn’t handle they would call me for; anything else could wait until I got in tomorrow.