Now I'm not saying that money isn't important.  As one of my photo teachers instilled in me, it's really nice, and really validating, to get paid for something that you love doing, and to get paid for practicing an art.  That way you can eat and sleep under a roof, and eating and sleeping is always good for creativity.  But that night I wanted my $40 bucks back, because not only did I feel like I wasted my time, but it depressed me that I was entering into a sort of rat race where everyone wanted to get rich quick and it wasn't really about the couple.

So this is how I started my wedding photography career.  After that workshop I decided that I was done with workshops (mistake #2: Using my past experience to assume, generalize and judge future experience; it was only late last year that I began to take workshops again discriminately) and I went about it on my own and went back to school.

This wasn't bad, but soon I realized that I wanted to find a mentor.  I have mentors in almost every area of my life, so this was a natural step in growing my business.  This time around I wanted to shadow someone who was more experienced and established, still photographed weddings and had a lot of fun doing it, and was not a participant in a soft pyramid scheme.

And so I found the mentor who took me in: Chenin Boutwell.  I've been following her blog for sometime.  When I look at her pictures here are the words that come to mind: genuine, funny, whimsical, and pretty.  And in interning for her this past summer I discovered that she is exactly these adjectives.  In taking pictures she is only projecting herself, but what a self that is.  She is your "everyman" photographer, in that she really does think it's a great thing that there are wedding photographers out there who are just starting out and enjoying the medium.  She is not a naysayer, but she keeps it real and tells you the honest truth.  And in a city where the truth can be hard to find, there she is, running an honest and joyful business and mentoring photographers everywhere with what she has learned in the business and art (you need both!) of wedding photography.

But wait, there's more!  She runs a successful business (note: this means working days, working nights, working weekends, and time in between too) and she has a one year old son AND she gets home in time to cook dinner for her family.  I grew up with people telling me you either like working, or you like being at home with kids.  Can't do both.  You'll be unhappy because when you're at work you'll want to be at home, and when you're at home you'll be at work.  So I know this can be a struggle but can someone please show me that it can be done and happiness can be found? 

In the end, that's what mentors do.  They instill in you the lessons that they've learned and practiced time and again, and they help you understand that you can do it too.  It might take a lot of hard work, maybe even some blood, sweat, and tears, but I believe that passionate people do achieve what they want in life, and that is to live a life where they are honest with themselves and honest about the way God has made them.

Three cheers for mentors!  Here's the link to the PDN Article!

First of all, I must admit, I am not really of the crafty sort.  Growing up, I encountered many of a craft table here and there, but I preferred the less complicated stuff, like eating (yes, eating can be a hobby folks) and reading books.  As a kid, when I think of crafts I think of my inability to cut in a straight line and my disinterest in the craft that was being made.  A specific memory: I was sitting at a craft table and my teacher made me make a green pea fridge magnet.  All the components to the green pea fridge magnet was cut out already so I had no choice but to make the green pea fridge magnet.  But I was not really interested in making that magnet.  To top it all off, I was not in the mood for veggies, let alone felt veggies.  These were my reasons, but most of all I did not want to be like the other kids with their mass-produced green pea fridge magnets.  I wanted to be different and special!  Thus I grew up seeing crafting as a very restrictive thing because I have a tendency to be a independent and spoiled space cadet.

But the wedding season is approaching, and this year, since one of my best friends is getting married, I decided to sign up for a Paper Source Workshop to clear the cobwebs of my preconceptions of crafting and venture into the world of handmade invitations.  In other words, I wanted to try something new, and crafting seems like a nice creative challenge for me.

Anyhow, this workshop was nothing like the craft tables of my childhood!  I had so much fun (and choices!) at Paper Source's Wedding Tea Workshop this past Saturday!  I stamped, embossed, and even cut my own envelope liners.  I was so proud of myself and besides, there was such a peaceful feeling about it.  It was similar to what I feel when I am doing my thing with wedding photography.  The workshop gave me many ideas about what I want to do for an upcoming bridal shower, and all the while I enjoyed meeting new people while practicing my ever-continuing hobby of snacking.  What a great way for me to start off my Saturday, surrounded by future bridesmaids and brides with beautiful engagement rings, smiles, and steaming cups of tea.  Creativity is alive and well in the city of Los Angeles, and I left the workshop feeling pretty good about myself for perfectly lining an envelope.  I know, I mentioned this already but I actually lined an envelope all by myself!  Just wanted to remind you.

Brides, for oodles of inspiration check out their wedding invitation line, and for those of you interested in getting your crafting on, Paper Source is offering a Wedding Suites event March 4, nationwide.  With each workshop they also give away a 10% coupon for what you buy at the store that day, so it helps if you come prepared with a shopping list.  Happy crafting, you crafty crafter!  

My husband and I were born a day apart.  In exchanging vows on our wedding day I told him that if we grew up together we would play and be best friends.  This can only exist within my head, because we most definitely did not grow up together.  We grew up in opposite circumstances, he in a small village in Taiwan and I in the suburb of Torrance.  But when he recalls fragments of his childhood to me, I imagine my mother-in-law giving her son, a two-year-old, a bath in a bright plastic tub that usually houses water for the washing of vegetables.  He tells me that if we were in the same village he would come over very day, knock on my door and ask my mom if I would come out and ride bikes.  Since his grandma rises at the crack of dawn to sell the bananas they grew, every few days he would bring bananas over and place them on the counter in the kitchen.  Reluctantly he places the dusty fruit on the table at his grandma's bidding, bruised because he was riding his bike fast on the dirt path.

Can Christine come out and play?  His mom always reminds him to at least ask, don't just barge in there expecting others to play with you.  That's how he is, always thinking that the world is ready for him.  This is not necessarily his fault, as all of the older cousins dote on him, telling him how sweet he is.  Out of all of the cousins in the family he is the only one his grandpa holds, even once going to the photography studio for a picture together, a man holding a little boy with the same soul, posing in front of a canvas of feathered trees.  It is as if they were walking through a serene forest, and oh look, what do we have here?  A camera. Grandpa wears a double-breasted blazer and tie, and while he has spent all day getting ready for this picture the little boy, dressed in a powder blue cardigan and out of his element, merely looks at the camera with awe.  Grandpa holds on to his grandson and points to the camera.  Though Grandpa's eyes are wrinkled with work, age and time his grandson's eyes are new and curious, surprised by a stillness as he is in his grandpa's arms, waiting for the photograph to be taken.

***

Whenever he asks me to play, I would always refuse in the hopes that I can hear him insist that I play with him, subtly needing this kind of verbal affirmation that indicated to me that he wanted to play with me, that out of all of the other kids in the village he could play with he would rather play with me.  That's how I see it anyway, though I know that sometimes I am the only one he can play with because many of the kids are with their parents.  Today Cindy is helping her parents hawk buns on the street, while Gao sorts the mail for his dad, who would deliver my family's mail in the afternoon, at around 3 o'clock.  Every year we would lose more of our playmates to the consequences of being taller, stronger, and older.  The working world of our parents swallows them up.  Only the banana lady's grandson is left because his selling duties are relegated to the early morning shift.

Lately he tells me about how his grandma took him to see a movie.  It was an American Movie with John Wayne.  He tells me how the screen is bigger than the window of his eyes.  I like movies too, especially love stories, like the soap operas my mom watches.  I have never seen a movie though.  They're too expensive, my mom always says.

One day I have this great idea and I ask him, hey do you want to see a movie?  He says of course I want to see a movie and so we ride our bikes to the edge of the hill at the north end of the village.

-Are you sure this is where the movie is?

-Yes, this is where I saw the movie, I assure him.

-Are you sure it's free?

-Mom didn't give me any money; look!  I empty my pockets.

-Yeah but are you sure it's free?

-I have no money, of course it's free, I say.

We pedal our bikes up the hill, and it's steep enough for our calves to stiffen.  Sweat gathering on our foreheads, we ride to the top and I see the new billboard that they raised in the distance.  "Happy Family Makes for a Prosperous Country" the billboard says.  It is a painting of a family, all smiles while pushing a child in a stroller.

-Where's the movie?

-You just wait.  Here, sit here.

We sit together in viewing distance of the billboard.  He is anxious.

-Surpise!  Here is the movie!

-Movie?  This is not a movie!  He is angry now and he wipes his sweaty forehead with his sleeves like window wipers on a rainy day.

-The billboard!  See the family?  We can pretend it's a movie.  What do you want the family to do next?

-This is not a movie!  I've seen a movie and this is not a movie!  I have you!  This is so stupid!  You're stupid!

With that he gets up, grabs his bike and allows gravity to take him down the hill.  I eventually go home too, my movie idea ruined, my heart hurting because I was just there the other day, and the family was walking in the park and taking care of the baby.  I thought he might have fun helping me think of what the family would do next in that film, but I am wrong.  When I get home I sit in the kitchen and tear up in front of the dusty bananas.  My little sister, barely walking, wobbles over to me to show me the new bucket she got from Dad yesterday.

Two days pass before I hear him knocking on my door again.

A few months ago I re-branded C Weddings.  My friend Byron designed a few logos for me and I knew I had found the right logo when I saw an engagement ring incorporated into the C Weddings brand.

More than anything else, I find getting engaged to be the most exciting moment in the process of getting married.  Before all of the busywork that goes into organizing a wedding, before the awkward meeting of parents and in-laws, before drawing up the budget, and before the acknowledgment that there is indeed going to be rain on the wedding day, there was my then-boyfriend, down on one knee.

Actually, the cast on that day was bigger than just my husband.

On a particular Saturday night I come home from church after an evening of youth group.  I am exhausted, so I do what I usually do when the kids drive me nuts--I lie down and rest for a bit.  Suddenly I hear my door unlock and then I see two guys break in, politely (is there such a thing as breaking in politely?), with a key.  Before they shut off the lights I can see that they're my friends, and then I hear a clashing of the dishes as one of them trips over glass bowls that I put on the floor as booby traps should someone break in.  A fishing pole's on the floor too, and I hear someone say something like Put your hands up!!  or Surrender! 

I am calm now. 

-Egan, is that you?

-Man, we never do things right, says Egan.

The lights are on now.

-Here!  Just put on the blindfold, says Ben, now in the tone of a friend rather than the raving lunatic terrorist he's supposed to be, like on 24.  He gives me a bandana because now it's self-serve, and they tie my hands together and lead me downstairs.  I hear a minivan door open and I hear foreign music and Ethan screaming Where is the bomb!??!?!? while braking suddenly from time to time.  I think I am going to throw up, I tell them, and if we get pulled over by the cops this will be interesting.

We get to Manhattan Beach and they untie the blindfold.  One of my youth group kids, Benita, hands me a large bouquet of flowers and along with another one of my youth group kids, Kathy, they both lead me down a walkway onto the beach.  At one point they tell me to keep going, and I am walking in the sand, clothed in darkness.  I hear my boyfriend's voice.  Eventually I see him because there is my paparazzi friend Jason (who means well) lingering his stay, his camera flashing like hell as he takes pictures of us.  So now it is just romantic and funny at the same time.  My boyfriend is wearing a suit and my third wheel friend is standing there waiting for my boyfriend to proceed.

After my boyfriend asks Jason to please leave he then proceeds to tell me many things.  I wish I remember what he says, but the truth is I am bawling my eyes out.  You are thinking how sweet, but usually when I cry it is not pretty.  It's a snot-coming out, face scrunched up like a prune type of crying.  Good thing it's dark, because he's still talking and not backing up and running out of there.

At that moment I understand that deep down inside everyone longs to be known, accepted, and loved for who they are.  On that night my then-boyfriend--by placing one knee in the sand and offering me a ring--communicated to me that he loves me for who I am, enough to want to spend the rest of his life with me.

This is what I think of when I see my engagement ring.  Things are simple back then.  It's the beach, the wind blowing at my back, the adjusting of my eyes to the darkness and seeing a man who wanted to love me further by asking a simple question.