This is 2019

2019 was one of those years that felt tough at times. I am not going to lie, I have struggled with the way our country has evolved, how our leaders have behaved, how we have come to be seen by the world.  I am a patriot, and I love these islands, and it’s been really hard to see some of our least admirable qualities emboldened & magnified at times.  

So weddings have been a refuge of sorts.  I don’t expect all the people I work with to have the same politics as me – that would be boring, and weird (“You think the national anthem should be written & sung by A-ha too? Amazing!”), but everything like that just melts away in the face of the love on display.  In the face of my brilliant couples, of course, but also in the tissue being held so tightly in a mum’s hand as she watches her child walk down the aisle, lest her emotions overtake her.  In the brother so fiercely proud of his sibling. In the grandparent giving thanks that the world was gracious enough to let their lives be long enough to celebrate these events, when so many do not. And in so many empty chairs, framed images, and unspoken names of the loved family members who were not so fortunate, but who are very much a part of the day. 

These are the stories that matter on those days, everything else can wait for 24 brilliant hours when all these plans and schemes are made flesh in flowers and lights and dancing and food. When it happens just as you dreamed, or it didn’t but it was freaking amazing anyway. 

Props must got to my industry friends who have made these realities;  planners, caterers, florists, filmmakers, stylists, beauty wizards, and every last person who spends their Saturday making sure everything works as it should.  

So, on the eve of an election, put away those (important) thoughts for a few minutes & look instead at Dads with a beard of glitter, a sea of flashing hats, two women running back down the aisle after 30 years of being in love, a storm of confetti, goats & llamas, vicars with pink handbags, a million mad flowers girls, and fifty six brilliant people saying ‘I will’ and trusting me to be the person to capture it.  Thank you to every last one of you.  

This is 2019.