Wedding Thoughts Part 1

all photos by Cappy Hotchkiss

 In February once we get through fashion week and valentines day; two traditionally difficult money losing business endeavors - we focus on spring wedding season.

We've been talking internally about the wedding industry and what we like about it and what we'd rather see fade into the sunset...

What I love about weddings is the momentum - the process of building a big celebration from ideas, images, ephemeral feelings -- to then the muscle and grit of actually creating it all on the day.

You can imagine that on our team theres a lot of us that are good at the dreaming and scheming, and then a lot of us that are good at the grit. (Imagine Deanna, all dressed up inside the belly of a giant box truck lifting cast iron urns on the day of the wedding...)

I also am - and you may find this hard to believe - a complete sucker for ceremonies. As someone who used to vow against the 'institution' of marriage, I now am the person that purposely avoids mascara on wedding days; and makes sure none of my staff are near me through the ceremony. People change, sometimes for the better.

Obviously I love the flowers at weddings. The big, over the top-ness that we get to create for weddings -- the way flowers become this momentous visual marker for the celebration and remind us of brief, ephemeral quality of life. For most people, a wedding is a once in a lifetime opportunity to engage with flowers in this way.

I love the opportunity to give clients an education on the flower world - and nature by extrapolation. Often times brides are eager to know the names of all the varieties of flowers we design with and now grow ourselves (!) and they are hungry to know why certain things grow in certain places or certain seasons.



Some of my brides over the years have needed explanation on why they can't have flowering branches in Autumn. This provides us an opportunity to explain the sexual processes of trees to them! Next time they are walking through central park and see crabapples or other fruiting branches, they feel excited and educated about WHY...remembering that trees flower in spring, leaf out (to collect energy) photosynthesis in summer and then make fruit in the fall.

So working so intimately with our clients gives me great pleasure to have that dialog about nature and the process of flowers.

I also really love my crew. At my research residency in Mexcio last week with a bunch of strangers (now friends) we talked a lot about our lives, our jobs. Towards the end of the week someone commented; 'you really love your staff, you talk about them constantly!' I do. In so many ways they are like the big family that I don't have; and when we produce events I get to have them all together in one place. 

I have more to write about the wedding thoughts we've been mulling over, including the things I want to change about the wedding industry (bet you can't wait for that) and how brides can feel better about the whole process. The funny thing is that I never thought I'd be in the wedding business, and yet here we are, and now I realize instead of being always critical about the industry, we can make it BETTER.

I also need to fill you in on the rest of my PLANTLAB! research from Oaxaca...

[PHOTOS by Cappy Hotchkiss from Jess and Adam's October wedding at a private estate in Husdon, NY with AAB CREATES, who are some of my favorite people in the wedding industry.]