Reasons I love my husband, #74.
(amid a conversation a few months back about weddings and how they fuck with women's brains....)
N: you just need to look at Meg's Wedding Survivors series...
C: Dude, they're called Wedding Graduates...
N: (incredulous) Really? They should totally be called Wedding Survivors.
Man has a point.
*photo by Lillian and Leonard (us)
*apart from the ones we photograph, obviously. But that's different from just poring over photographs of weddings I haven't been to, of people I don't know. Weddings we photograph are about love and passion and creativity and hard work and that's a different kind of excitement from 'look at the pretty strangers in the pretty dresses, and OMG the bridesmaids' shoes.'
Elderflowers. So pretty, so sweet smelling, so delightfully deliciously free. So why have I never seen them in wedding flowers? It makes no sense.
CLAUSE 7: PROMISES FULFILLEDSub-clause 7b: DOGSOn such an occasion as a wedding-dog is promised that does not materialise, the photographers reserve the right to leave the event.
The provision of a four-course meal and local micro brew may reverse such a decision.
We are in full flow with the old wedding thing again. It's wonderful. No, really.I love my babies and they're so much fun to be with but it's also quite fantastic to get out and use the photography bit of my brain again and to spend a day with Nye not being parents. Weird thing though: when we were trying to make babies and there was a baby at a wedding I would wistfully follow it around all day. I thought it was because I WANTED one. Now that I have one two, I still wistfully follow them around all day, desperate for a cuddle and a chat and to just soak in the cuteness. Turns out I'm obsessed.* 1920s wedding photo via Alan Knocker
*'first' as in 'the first ring that cemented my engagement to The Boy'. Not 'first' as in 'the first of my many, many engagements.'
Nye and I have long-running disagreements about what makes the crappiest wedding band:
(sample conversation at a wedding:N: This is the worst band yetC: Nah, remember the guys at X&Y's wedding?N: (incredulous) No way were they worseC: were too. )
I would like your input:
What is more offensive? A band who sing out of tune and play their instruments badly or a 'band' who sing in tune and pretend to play their instruments while actually using karaoke tracks?*And let's not even talk about bands who touch the wedding photographer inappropriately, ok? Although if anyone has any ideas for how to deal with such a situation without starting a brawl at someone's wedding, I'm all ears.* of course it's all irrelevant if they can actually make British people dance. In that case who cares if they sound like they've never actually heard Brown Eyed Girl?photos by Lillian and Leonard (aka, us)
You might remember a while back when I started pimping my girl Sophie? She was starting her business, I Heart Flowers, and was looking for guys and girlies who were getting married to help her build her portfolio. Well that portfolio is BUILT, and it's shit hot.
Now my lady is looking for guys and girlies who are getting married next year and as she has really loved working with the ones that have come to her through lil old Peonies and Polaroids I thought maybe it was time to ask y'all again: are you getting married in the UK and looking for a sweet, sweet florist lady? Yes? I know just the girl....
Confession: when I wrote about Soph way back in February I had no idea whether she could do weddings or not. I knew she could do bouquets of roses and teddy bears made from carnations and all that other day-to-day-when-you-work-for-another-florist stuff but a whole wedding? All by herself? I was just guessing that she would be pretty good at it when I told you to hire her (I know, my bad).
Well it turns out that she's amazing. An awe-inspiring, flower dynamo. Every time N and I leave a wedding where we've just photographed her flowers we turn to each other in wonderment and say 'WOW, she is good.' Not that we ever thought she wouldn't be, just that knowing someone with that much skill is kind of dazzling.
And it's not just us, there are brides and grooms all over the place saying the exact same thing. And other things too, things like "I don't know how you knew exactly what we wanted when we didn't even know" and "you turned a bunch of crappy emailed ideas into the perfect flowers for our wedding" and "thank you! You're amazing!" and and and...
These are just a handful of the wedding flowers that Sophie has done this summer, just the ones that we were lucky enough to photograph. Every wedding that she's done that I haven't been able to get all cosy with the flowers has been like a poke in the eye with a sharp stick and I get a mean sort of jealous about the photographer who does get to photograph them. Really. It's a little weird and possessive but what can I say? I like being Soph's photographer and I kind of like playing Bride with the bouquet when I get the chance.
So really. If you're getting married in the UK (or if you're getting married somewhere else but you really really love my girlie and you want to pay for her to come to your wedding and create flowery magic) this time I can seriously recommend her. She is AMAZING.
Find her here and email her at sophie@iheartflowers.co.uk
* And can I make this more about me for a moment? Just a moment? Thanks. Those three pictures of the pink rose and lavendar bouquets? They were taken in OUR HOUSE! That's right, we painted some walls and hung up a picture and took some furniture out of storage and went and finished a room, right here in this building site of ours. And it feels so. damn. good.
This wedding by One Love Photo is killing me in all sorts of glorious ways.Bride, cardigan, glasses, lace, grins, ties, ice cream, JIGSAWS, reception in their friend George's sitting room....YES. PLEASE.
I'm really needing one of you to have this as a wedding reading. Preferrably one of you who is having us photograph your wedding. Thanks.(yes, you will need some pretty cool friends to read it. Or a celebrant with a sense of humour. Ooooh, or a couple of pretty cool, pretty talented friends to sing it for you. Fuck yeah!)
In Spite of Ourselves, by John Prine.She don't like her eggs all runny
She thinks crossin' her legs is funny
She looks down her nose at money
She gets it on like the Easter Bunny
She's my baby I'm her honey
I'm never gonna let her go
He ain't got laid in a month of Sundays
I caught him once and he was sniffin' my undies
He ain't too sharp but he gets things done
Drinks his beer like it's oxygen
He's my baby
And I'm his honey
Never gonna let him go
In spite of ourselves
We'll end up a'sittin' on a rainbow
Against all odds
Honey, we're the big door prize
We're gonna spite our noses
Right off of our faces
There won't be nothin' but big old hearts
Dancin' in our eyes.
She thinks all my jokes are corny
Convict movies make her horny
She likes ketchup on her scrambled eggs
Swears like a sailor when shaves her legs
She takes a lickin'
And keeps on tickin'
I'm never gonna let her go.
He's got more balls than a big brass monkey
He's a wacked out werido and a lovebug junkie
Sly as a fox and crazy as a loon
Payday comes and he's howlin' at the moon
He's my baby I don't mean maybe
Never gonna let him go
In spite of ourselves
We'll end up a'sittin' on a rainbow
Against all odds
Honey, we're the big door prize
We're gonna spite our noses
Right off of our faces
There won't be nothin' but big old hearts
Dancin' in our eyes.
There won't be nothin' but big old hearts
Dancin' in our eyes.
*Vishaka and Dean's wedding, by Lillian and Leonard, me and him, us.
It's been a long time since I got excited about a wedding dress. I mean, I've seen plenty that are pretty and plenty that are lovely but one that I couldn't stop thinking about? Not for ages. We still get sent a bunch of wedding magazines for the business and I spotted this insane Rosa Clara dress in an issue of Brides* an issue or so back.
I'm aware that there are like 10 people in the world who could get away with wearing an origami dress and I look at it, picture myself in it and I see a tomato sauce stain on the front. But I love it.
* (which, btw, we are featured in this month)
image courtesy of Rosa Clara
Thank you all again for your sweetness, no sharp sticks for you girlies, just smooches. I'll be back next week with a little more W&P, but for now let me present......
Persephone & Fauxhawk, The Nuptials. I know a lot of you have been waiting for this for a long long time. I know because you keep asking me. So here you have it, some snippets of Persephone & The Hawk's wedding, the reason we were in New York in the first place.
These are just a few of my favourites but you can see the whole shebang on Lillian and Leonard:
{ part 1, the preparations}
* As I was putting together this post I heard Skid Row on the radio for the very first time ever! If you don't understand the significance of this it means you haven't been reading What Possessed Me closely enough. Which means you should have your internet connection revoked.
Ring the bells that still can ringForget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything,
That's how the light gets in.
(Leonard Cohen)
I like notes on napkins. It's something about the impermanence of them. No matter how much thought has gone into the note it's still a napkin and the chances of it being to hand when I knock something over (which I do regularly) and being picked up and used without a thought just because it's a napkin and that's what you do with napkins is very high. And then it will be gone, a soggy, ink strewn mess and I will swear and curse and call myself an idiot (which I do regularly) for grabbing a napkin that was more than a napkin to clean up a mess that was just a mess.
Finally, after hundreds of weeks and millions of years we finally finished tinkering with the new website design for Lillian and Leonard last week and it has gone live. Now I can go to bed without lying awake all night debating smoke grey vs cloud grey and whether it's ok to have, you know, personality on a wedding photography website. Maybe.
One of my best girlies, Sophie, is setting up her own floristy business here in Scotland and she is looking for ladies and boys who are planning their weddings on little budgets (or ladies and boys who are planing their weddings on big budgets but don't want to spend loadsa money on flowers) to help her build her portfolio.
In her words....
"I am looking for lovely brides and grooms who might like to save a little money on their wedding flowers. As I am currently building a portfolio I would be delighted to design the flowers for your wedding at a very reasonable price - just a smidgen over the cost price of the flowers. You could either spend your original budget on flowers and have so much more for your money or just simply save a penny or two for the cake, photographer, dress or a fabulous honeymoon. I am based in central Scotland so a Scottish wedding would be ideal, but I'd also love to travel a little further afield if I can."Sophie and I met when we were in art school together. We didn't like each other very much at first but now we do. Lots. (Sometimes we grab each other inappropriately. This confuses my husband a little)
Sophie is the bestest. Not only does she have beautiful red curls, the cutest kitties, bring me flowers when I'm blue and know some excellent rude words (if you don't know how much I love a girl who loves rude words then you haven't been paying enough attention) but she was one of our bridesmaids a hundred years ago when we got married and she was the best bridesmaid ever. Top notch.
Oh, and she's very very clever with flowers. She made this prettiest of pink bouquets one evening at our house when she had the flu. About ten minutes after the boy finished taking these pictures we all passed out and died. Imagine what she can do when she's not dying....
It helps that she really loves flowers. She also really loves weddings. And people. I've been to a lot of weddings and I've met a lot of florists and I've been appalled at how many seem to really hate weddings. (The same goes for a lot of caterers, venues and musicians but those are stories for that blog I'm not allowed to write). Sophie loves weddings though and the thought of being part of someone's day really excites her. It's kind of sweet!
So please, go ahead and get in touch with her. She wants to make your pretty pretty flowers and best of all, she wants to do it dead cheap. She will be especially excited if your wedding is within the next couple of months as she's raring to get going.
You can email her at sophie [at] iheartflowers [dot] co [dot] uk and her blog is here. Tell her I sent you, she'll like that.
flower photos by The Boy. Sophie photo by me.
* yes, that's a cage in our living room. How else are we supposed to contain The Beast?
** I don't know how many of y'all readers are still brides-to-be, nor how many of you live in Scotland (which I would know if I looking at my analytics page didn't plunge me into a pit of dispair) but maybe still some of you engaged ladies are hanging on in here with us boring marrieds.
The young couple first married on August 5, 1744, when Joseph was eight and Sarah six, and first ended their marriage six days later when Joseph refused to believe, to Sarah's frustration, that the stars were silver nails in the sky, pinning up the black nightscape. They remarried four days later, when Joseph left a note under the door of Sarah's parents' house: I have considered everything you told me, and I do believe that the stars are silver nails.
They ended their marriage again a year later, when Joseph was nine and Sarah seven, over a quarrel about the nature of the bottom of the river bed. A week later, they were remarried, including this time in their vows that they should love each other until death, regardless of the existence of the riverbed, the temperature of the river bed's bottom (should it exist), and the possible existence of starfish on the possibly existing riverbed.
They ended their marriage one hundred and twenty times throughout their lives and each time remarried with a longer list of vows. They were sixty and fifty-eight at their last marriage, only three weeks before Sarah died of heart failure and Joseph drowned himself in the bath. Their marriage contract still hangs over the door of the house they on-and-off shared-nailed to the top post and brushing against the welcome mat:
"It is with everlasting devotion that we, Joseph and Sarah L, reunite in the indestructible union of matrimony, promising love until death, with the understanding that the stars are silver nails in the sky, regardless of the existence of the bottom of the river, the temperature of this bottom (should it exist) and the possible existence of starfish on the possibly existing riverbed, overlooking what may or may not have been accidental grape juice spills, agreeing to forget that Joseph played sticks and balls with his friends when he promised he would help Sarah thread the needle for the quilt she was sewing, and that Sarah was supposed to give the quilt to Joseph, not his buddy, ignoring the simple fact that Joseph snores like a pig, and that Sarah is no great treat to sleep with either, letting slide certain tendencies of both parties to look too long at members of the opposite sex, not making a fuss over why Joseph is such a slob, leaving his clothes wherever he feels like taking them off, expecting Sarah to pick them up, clean them, and put them in their proper place as he should have, or why Sarah has to be such a pain about the smallest things, such as which way the toilet paper unrolls, or when dinner is five minutes later than she was planning, because, let's face it, it's Joseph who's putting that paper on the roll and dinner on the table, disregarding whether the beet is a better vegetable than the cabbage, putting aside the problems of being fat-headed and chronically unreasonable, trying to erase the memory of a long since expired rose bush that a certain someone was supposed to remember to water when his wife was visiting family, accepting the compromise of the way we have been, the way we are, and the way we will likely be. May we live together in unwavering love and good health. Amen."
. image from The Craft Department, via Lovely Morning
. text from Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer via Pink India Ink (who is bloody hilarious. Go, read, if you don't already)
Lest you think I don't appreciate pretty dresses, fruffly shrugs, vintagey headpieces and improbably beautiful friends....
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