Wedding Anniversary Gift

This Friday is my eldest daughter and son-in-law's first wedding anniversary.  They married last fall in San Antonio, Texas with millions of Monarch butterflies overhead.

Monarchs migrate from the far Northern parts of the United States down to Mexico and since they have an extremely short life span, it may take multiple generations to complete the long trip.  It's an amazing, beautiful journey for an amazingly beautiful, fragile life.  We were fortunate to be in the path of their flight through Texas where millions converge before entering Mexico.

The kids were married outdoors in the Japanese Gardens under a sky filled with butterflies.  At the conclusion of the ceremony, I captured a Monarch on our windshield and have been saving it ever since.  I knew I wanted to give it to them on their first anniversary.

I tried a number of approaches for how to best display the butterfly and finally settled on this idea.  My daughter carried her favorite flowers, Gerber Daisies for her wedding so I selected a silk version to nestle the butterfly.  It was really tedious to rebuild the wings and protect it while trying to mount it in a 5" x 5" shadow box.

I hope it lasts a lifetime this way and that they enjoy remembering the clouds of Monarchs over their heads on their wedding day.

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