I don't sit around and read Camus.
Most of my encounters involve being hit over the head with one of his quotes when I'm reading something a little more...tangible. This is a case where I'm taking a quote entirely out of context and using it to talk about flowers.
Winter arrangements are some of my favorites, because they so perfectly depict tension. Tension between fall and spring, light and darkness, life and death, grit and grace, whatever your pairing of choice is.
No other season permits "dead" foliage, barren branches, and negative space. Spring, summer, and fall usually involve easily accessible farmer's market bouquets, zinnias and roses in gardens, and petunias on restaurant patios. Flowers can seem commonplace.
But blooms in winter are a delicacy, a nod to that "invincible summer" that is apparent in the buds plumping on every bare branch, and to the lingering evergreens still decking some halls in mid-January to remind us that all of the presents might be unwrapped but hope, expectancy, warmth, generosity-- everything encompassed by a trite phrase like "holiday spirit"--never dies.
Kind of like the wedding industry. We're an industry of dreamers. It might be snowy outside, but we're already thinking of spring and fall, imagining how we will use our medium to tell our clients' stories and capture their own "invincible summers."
Take this December photo shoot, for example. You would never guess that it was created with freezing temps outside just a week before Christmas. It was a last-minute shoot yet the professionals involved conjured up a healthy dose of serenity, warmth, and beauty.
I'm feeling enormously grateful that I get to work with dreamers such as these:
Photography: Renee Hollingshead
Location and Dress: Garnish Boutique
Calligraphy: Poppy & Scooter
Hair & Makeup: Behind the Veil, LLC
Dress Design: Tatyana Merenyuk
Model: Sydney Chance
Wishing you all an encounter with your own invincible summer this week.
xoxo,
Mary Ellen