Wedding Tablecloth Handmade by the Bride

There’s so much emphasis placed on the wedding day, all the wonderful things to plan and do. Gifts to make for your wedding party, flower arrangements, beautiful centerpieces for the tables, which ring, which dress, what to eat, where to honeymoon. I don’t know what my grandmother did on her wedding day, on August 1, 1925, and she’s gone now, so I’ll never know. What I do know is that years before she met my grandfather, she prepared for her married life. She was working on a wedding tablecloth (70"x90") that was going to be put away until some unknown time in the future to grace a table for a family she didn’t have yet.

I’m not saying that preparing for a wedding isn’t fun and shouldn’t be enjoyed. I was just thinking as I sat with my cup of coffee, my grandmother’s tablecloth gracing my table for its photo shoot, that as a teen she sat around with her grandmother, mother, and sisters, and worked on this tablecloth, putting care into each inch of it, into a tablecloth that was not going on the dinner table anytime soon.

I’m in a similar situation. I am not married now, no prospects, but wanting to get married and share my life with someone (sigh with me). My grandmother was at such a point in her life. What I add to the equation is a bit of hindsight in that I have been married, had children, cooked and laid many a table, tucked kids in with blankets I’ve made by hand and are still loved and used today.

Would I begin and finish a creation of this magnitude, spend months working on this masterpiece, then wrap it up unused and put it away in anticipation of someday falling in love, getting married and then, after all that, finally eating a meal on my handmade tablecloth? Have I lost a bit of my romantic side that the first thing that comes to mind is that I’m not sure what size my table will be?   All questions to ask myself over another cup of coffee.