1000 Cranes

Ancient Japanese legend holds that folding 1000 origami cranes will bless the craftsman with any wish and that the 1000 cranes, if given as a gift, will bring the recipient good luck. As such, they are traditional wedding gifts and decorative emblems.

So now can you guess what is going to happen?

Yes. I bought 15 x 15 cm sheets of royal blue, sky blue and grey origami paper, and Guy painstakingly cut each sheet into nine 5 x 5cm sheets from which we folded over 1000 origami cranes.

I’ve never been a fan of table crystals. In fact, before I got my engagement ring, I never found myself attracted to the sparkly sparkly, and even now I like it strictly in moderation. But I wanted something to scatter across the tables, and since no confetti was to be thrown inside the venue, I didn’t think they’d be that impressed with it strewn all over the table tops.

The idea of 1000 origami cranes came to me when I was rummaging for “blue things” through my old room. They weren’t blue, they were multi-coloured (but you’re supposed to make your own anyway, aren’t you? And it was on this occasion that I turned up the blue stones for the flower vases) – and had come as packaging round an ebay item a friend had bought many years ago.

I didn’t know how to fold origami cranes, but I did not let that deter me.

I knew people who did.

One of the most beautiful things about having the cranes at our wedding was that they weren’t just made by me, or by us, but by a huge collection of our friends. To James (my best man) and David (one of our readers), who are keen on origami, I sent 200-250 little pieces of paper for crane-folding. Kay (whom I will mention later) kept inviting herself round “to make more cranes” – and bringing friends with her. We folded cranes at our housewarming party; we folded cranes on the train; we even produced a crane assembly line. Iris tried to join in with the cranes, and continued to try to jump in the box full of them, or tear open it’s sides (naughty Iris!).

It was truly a marathon of cranes.

My mum, on the phone, thought I was talking about folding paper cranes.

But no, not quite.