With their range of colours and magical fragrance it's perhaps not surprising that so many brides choose sweet peas for their wedding flowers. What is perhaps less well known is that there is an old French tradition for giving sweet peas to the bride
as it was believed that this meant that all those around her would tell the truth and she would have persistence to keep going in tough times.
Given to a woman, sweet peas were believed to give the strength to keep going when things get hard and it feels as though all those around her were against her.
It seems a little strange that such a delicate looking flower has been linked with this tradition and this message.
For myself, it reminds me of what my mother used to say, that the more you picked sweet peas the stronger they got and the more flowers they put out. Perhaps that's the secret they are trying to tell us. That when we go through these difficult times and feel as if all the certainties in life are being stripped away from us we can be like the sweet pea and come back better and stronger than before.