Where to begin with 2019? The year opened mercilessly, hitting our business hard with some of our first major professional hurdles after three years of running our little design studio. January chopped our butts off and handed them to us, in the least nice way imaginable. I suppose in a professional space with no mentoring, the only way to learn hard lessons is to go through the thing. We have gotten much much better since, but it was a PROCESS.
But good stuff happened too. For starters, an engagement!
Sean proposed on our 3rd anniversary, after our annual photoshoot. We’ve been saving up to get married for a little over a year now, so he was a little worried that a proposal might be superfluous. But it was still wonderful to be asked, and so sweetly too. And I’m thankful that he knew me well enough to know to ask ME (not my parents hahahahaha)(who i love dearly and respect totally but who do not make these decisions for me)(really annoying that i have to qualify that).
Being engaged as a newly minted professional wedding supplier is weird, though. I don’t have enough friends in the industry to be getting any help, but I no longer qualify to be in those secret bridal Facebook groups with all the tea about suppliers. I also have a massive massive chip on my shoulder about THE WEDDING INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, so i’m pre-loaded with a lot of angst about how the whole ~event~ is executed in this country. It’s already showing in how i’m conducting my (pretty subversive) photographic practice, and it’s DEFINITELY rearing its head as we plan this wedding.
Thankfully, Sean holds similar sentiments. Between the both of us, he was the one with the secret wedding Pinterest board, so it’s fair to say he’s considered this a LOT. We want Bilbo Baggins’ birthday party, not a dog and pony show. We are also not willing to go broke feeding the five thousand at this party (sorry Jesus booze in 2019 ain’t free), so this certainly puts a cap on the number of people we want to invite, and which suppliers we are able to afford. So if you’re reading this and assume you are invited… uh, please don’t.
Anyway, it’s all good – i’m marrying a guy i’m on the same page with, so there’s a newsflash. After we got engaged it turns out he had invited some of our friends to drinks at a bar that was also an arcade.
We then proceeded to overtake the place with our auntie vibes by bringing in both an infant and a lady that was 24 weeks pregnant, prompting the bouncer to hand us not one but TWO waivers.
On that note, the auntie life has been a very good life. The little boys have been getting bigger and bigger each month, as they are wont to do, and i can hardly believe they’re all turning one soon. That is batshit. I remember when you were all but little secret embryos.
City living’s still a pain in the junk. Be better, Manila. If it really wasn’t for the good people in you.
I think that’ll be it for this blog post. I’m going to try doing a monthly thing for the next quarter as I am producing quite a bit of work. That’s a good thing, seemingly!
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