A little while ago, I volunteered to help out with a wedding (the cousin of my fella). I wasn’t entirely sure what I was signing up for but hey, it has resulted in two stellar opportunities for new things to try out.
So here lies my Wedding Bonanza Part 1 chapter – the forgotten (well actually no, tons of people, especially in Japanese cultures, practice this) and delicate art of folding paper.
You can just imagine it. The year is 1603 in Japan. A young lad has way too much time on his hands and there is a stack of unused paper just lying there in front of him. Instead of ripping it up in a fierce show of his masculine prowess, he decides to fold it up as small as he can. He makes a small square. And so origami was born!
…OK no not really, but I imagine it was probably something like that.
You are probably wondering what origami has to do with this wedding in question. It’s a very good thing to question as you could easily imagine all sorts of ways to connect origami and weddings. Perhaps they were going to get married in Japan. Perhaps they were really into ornithology. Or perhaps they wanted to build a paper fort and get married in that. Sadly, none of those were true. But the story is still quite sweet.
The mother of the groom had the intention of making 1000 origami cranes so that they could make a wish on behalf of the newly wed couple. This idea came from ancient Japanese folklore. And I do believe it is quite a special idea. She strung them together and hung them around the venue. It took her awhile but she did finally achieve this.
So why did I bother getting involved? Well it turns out that after making 1000 origami cranes, she had some paper left over. I really wanted to try my hand at it and volunteered to make another 100. They would be added to the decorations.
It turns out that believing that folding paper was going to be a walk in the park was actually a walk down sliced-fingertips lane. Origami, if you want to do it right, is so much more tricky that I expected. My first crane looked like it was facing the prospect of being thrown into the fire and as a result was huddling in despair.
The first few were atrocious and I had to keep consulting a YouTube video. But then, slowly by slowly, my hobbled, broken, disfigured birds looked like they might have a shot at life.
After 20, I started to want to give up.
After 30, I cried. A lot.
After 40, I asked myself why I volunteered for this.
After 50, I considered soaking my hands in ice water to numb the paper cut pain.
After 60, I looked up moving to Alaska to avoid doing the rest.
After 70, I screamed at myself for being an idiot for volunteering for this.
After 80, I repeated all the kardashian sisters’ names to keep my mind from going insane.
After 90, my imaginary friend Joseph questioned why I signed up for this.
After 100, I thought well it wasn’t so bad, was it?
When they were all strung together, in the venue, on the day, they were stunning. I was so proud of myself for sticking with it. I was so happy that they looked [almost] perfect. Sure, I couldn’t properly type or touch anything for a few days after from the slices on my fingers, but I didn’t mind that too much once the painkillers kicked in.
Keeper or Skipper:
Are you getting married sometime soon? Would you like to have beautiful, delicate paper birds floating on strings at your window? Great! Ask someone else to help.
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