A New Project For 2020: Business Start Up in Staffordshire

2020 (the year I turned 40 and everything should have been great) is always going to be the year the world had to stop and stand still. Along with that so much has changed. As with any life experience, it changes you, it makes you, you become. I wanted to write a little bit about what I have been up to this year.

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/GrannysGardenCo

We are now almost in November 2020 and I have photographed 2 lovely weddings this year, yep, you heard me right, just two. I have one scheduled for December, which will go ahead with 13 people including the couple getting married, my last wedding was for 10 and back in August I photographed one with just short of 30 people involved in the day.

My heart goes out to anyone who feels like life has been put on hold this year, I do not know anyone who hasn’t in one way or another been affected by what has been happening. I consider myself lucky to be supported in my business, but I will say now that it’s not just the lack of income that has been tricky this year, but the lack of worth, purpose, job satisfaction. Honestly I had not realised how much my own well-being was dependent on me being able to do my job, being around people and fulfilling my role of delivering an important part of their wedding day, the memory part.

We battled through homeschooling, we worked out daily with Joe Wicks (ouch) and we ate and drank loads in the sun in the safety of our garden.

For the first part of lockdown (back when I thought this was all fairly temporary) we suffered two close family bereavements in a matter of months. All I wanted to do during this time was to wrap myself up in my family bubble and hide from the world, oh and more than anything I wanted to hug my Mum.

Not being able to say goodbye to someone you love because of this sodding virus, leaves you feeling sad, cheated and heavily regretful, despite knowing you had made your feelings known and made some peace with the inevitable. It’s so hard.

I keep thinking that whilst this virus feels like a curse to most, it was also a blessing in some ways, because it gave me a break from work when I probably most needed it. Could I have faced happy occasions when I was feeling so sad inside having just lost a father and my mother in law only months apart? All this during the toughest time I have experienced in my life.

Grief is not temporary, I know that and it just becomes a part of you that you learn to live with, whilst trying to adapt to life without the person whom you are grieving. The problem is as you go through life and you lose people close to you, the grief gets topped up somehow, and never seems to fade, in my experience anyway it becomes a part of you.

I lean on my husband and he leans on me and somehow I know we will get through it, but I am not going to pretend that it is easy at all.

This is not meant to be a sad or depressing post, in fact it is the opposite. Out of these darker times has come much opportunity to think and plan. I found myself a few weeks ago feeling a bit lost, wondering where I could find my worth and how I could be creative, whilst not being able to photograph weddings and doing what I really really love! I feel blessed that the wedding community has been pulling together, creating as much inspiration for couples as possible through styled shoots and collaborations (thank you Lush Occasions and Hanbury Wedding Barn) for giving me some photography opportunities this year! However lack of actual real life wedding work, has been difficult, weddings is what we in this industry thrive on; real, real love, emotion and celebration.

Styled Shoot at Hanbury Wedding Barn

During lockdown I had collected petals from the garden and any cut flowers I had bought, making my own concoction of dried flower petal confetti. I retrieved a poorly looking rose bush from my mother in laws garden, with the sole intention of trying to revive it so that we could always have something of her in our garden, Nanny’s rose it will always be known as. We revived it and it bloomed beautifully, I collected petals, dried them and they will come in useful one day, I have a plan for them!

Granny’s Garden Petal confetti at Hanbury Wedding Barn

Last year we became the proud grandparents of a beautiful baby boy and to him I am known as Granny, we like the irony given that I am quite a young grandparent, but hey what a privilege!! For my petal confetti the name Granny’s Garden was born and I set up a little Instagram account (@Grannysgardenco) for documenting everything being nurtured by having all this extra time for the garden due to lockdown, honestly our garden has never looked so pretty in the 16 years of living here!

When I was feeling rather down a few weeks ago, I decided I was going to try and make a wreath for my front door, I was sure it was something I could do, so off I went to Hobbycraft and purchased a shed load of materials! I made a wreath and felt thoroughly fulfilled by this creation, so I made another and another and all of a sudden people we saying I should sell them, Granny’s Garden Co on Etsy was created.

I am only three weeks in to this, it’s a project to see me through these darker winter days and I am loving every part of creating and sharing these wreaths with not only friends and family but also complete strangers who have purchased them through Etsy. I have also made up some DIY wreath kits with everything needed to make your own beautiful wreaths at home, it feels like it was just something that was waiting for me and I stumbled upon it just at the right time.

Crafting is therapeutic, fulfilling and so much fun and the response from everyone has been amazing! I hope that you will join me this winter, committing to shop small and support local businesses. I plan to support ad many independent businesses as possible this year, we will make it through this together! I cannot wait for weddings to resume, I would love it if you would help spread the work about my new little venture and as always thank you so much for all the love and support, you really do carry me through these more challenging times.

UPDATE

Granny’s Garden had an epic first two months and I have opened an online shop and am now offering Facebook and Instagram Shopping too, I cannot thank everyone enough for their support during this time. I am loving this little stop gap whilst I wait for weddings to come back to some normality, I will be here for you when they do, and in the meantime if you need anything, just get in touch, I will be crafting and wreath making with a glass of fizz to go into 2021 the right way!!