February

February was supposed to be our month off. A month off work and stress and busyness and ohmygodtheressomuchtodo. February was supposed to be the kind of month that lends itself to lazy days, coffee with friends, large pots of soup, reading books, baking bread and writing blog posts with leisure and no panic. February is only 8 days old and so far it's not looking like it's going to be working out like that.

It doesn't really matter, busy is good. Busy means work and work means that that apartment we just booked for four weeks in NYC that is six times our monthly mortgage payments is not quite so terrifying.

Busy means no time to brood and worry and nibble my bottom lip as I wonder WILL EVERYTHING BE OK?

Today busy has meant putting together this wedding for L&L which has meant a whole day of indecision and dithering and swapping and deleting and rearranging and just driving myself mad. Some days just getting the photographs in the right order feels like the biggest challenge there could ever be. But it's a pretty wedding with stripes and tulle and ravens and twinkly skies and I think we did good, so maybe I should just stop tinkering with it and chillthefuckout?


Can anyone please tell me how to do that?








* picture by Lillian and Leonard. Aka me and my boy. Aka us.

She hearts flowers

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.

Observations from a week

People believe that 'rsvp' is a suggestion. It's not.

At some tragic point in the last hundred years it became ok to wear trainers to the ballet. I do not approve.

The words 'thank you' have gone out of fashion.

While I've become capable of buying an item of clothing that is neither black jersey, grey and/or stripy I am not yet capable of buying said item of clothing without also buying black jersey and grey stripes at the same time. This is progress. Of a sort.

Not everyone really wants to sell what they are offering to sell. This is confusing.

Leggings are not pants. Not everyone has received the memo.

People are mean on the internet. People are also wonderful on the internet.

Birthdays are the best.

Twenty five is a nice age to be.



* Cristal de sueños y realidad by Elena Baca

a year (of work) in pictures

A huge part of the reason that 2009 will rest in my memory as A Very Good Year (Maybe Our Best So Far) is work. Work has been ridiculous this year, ridiculous in an amazing IcantbelieveIgetpaidtodothis kind of way.

We have travelled a silly number of miles to some stupidly beautiful places and met some of the funniest and sweetest people ever (we've met some crazy people too, but that's a discussion for a whole other blog. A blog that my husband won't let me write). We seriously did not expect the whole wedding photography gig to be this much fun or offer us this many opportunities. It was just supposed to pay our bills. Which it has done, which is nice, which is partly why it's been a good year.

But dude! We've been to France! And we've been to Wiltshire (where the sun shines and there are lions and tigers and wolves! Oh my!). We've photographed Scottish weddings and English weddings French weddings and Australian weddings in Scotland.

We've been invited into peoples homes, invited into their lives, invited to their wedding tables to share puddings with them and their tiny collection of guests. We've been witnesses for couples who eloped to cliff tops and we've driven home from receptions listening to our own wedding playlist, smiling silently and holding hands, marvelling at the capacity for friends and families and couples to love and share and celebrate.


It's been a good year.



See Lillian and Leonard's complete year in photos here. There is some surprisingly good shit.



All photos by me and husband, aka Lillian and Leonard Wedding Photography.
Available to travel. Expecially if there are lions involved. Or pudding.

a year in pictures, xii

k. december

And then it was the year's end and they baked bread and ate porridge and reflected that despite its losses it had been a good one. And then they rested.

a year in pictures, xi

j. november

I'm not sure what I was doing in November but I definitely wasn't taking pictures. I think I was dreaming (I'm usually dreaming) and I think I was planning and plotting and wishing for a little shop of my own. A real one, made from bricks and windows and wooden floors, filled by uniquities made by hand, with love. I pressed my nose up against shutters, gazed at phone numbers on 'to let' signs and whispered my dreams to my husband in those quiet moments before the pictures roll. Dreams of flying high.

(do you love my birdy? Isn't she plump and pretty and beautiful? Doesn't she fly so high? She was made by Flora May of Through the Round Window and sent to me in the summer. I'm a little in love with her red baby valentines bird...)