Sunday 17 June 2012

Birthdays, Anniversaries and Daddy's Day

The coming month is an interesting one, on the 1st of July my baby daughter turns one. It doesn't seem like a year since she finally entered the world and came into our lives, blue and with the cord around her neck. She's tall and strong, she's bright and cheerful and over the last year I have gotten to know a fascinating and splendid little character who I couldn't imagine living without - even when she's trying to steal mammy's roll of ribbon.

Out in the sun with daddy who was photographing my wedding stationery samples.


This month also marks the anniversary of us getting the keys to our first house, this house. It's a place of happy memories, sad memories, frustration and accomplishment. Here is where I left the world of teenage student-hood to become the wife, mother and business owner I am now. In many ways this is where I grew up. My first car, the car I learned to drive in, was registered to this address, our hen lives in our back yard and my father-in-law helped Matthew fit everything from roof insulation to a bathroom. Here is where we decorated our first child's nursery with the help of half the family and where Matt left from the morning of our wedding in 2008 (I went back to my mam's - I'm traditional like that.) We've been here 7 years now, and although in many ways I would love to move on, can you ever not have a certain love for your first home?

 Our wedding - January 5th 2008

It's also now a year since the first prototype of the Graphic Embers website went live, I know because I'm just had to pay for the next years hosting bill. Matt originally ran the business and didn't start trading until October, but as I built the website in the days leading up to having our daughter the date is still quite a milestone for me. Building the website was an acknowledgement that change was afoot, the redundancy proceedings were going through at work and I knew I wouldn't have a job to go back to when my maternity leave came to an end. I also knew that I'd had a dream, and five years of making wedding and engagement stationery as hobby was simply a precursor to doing it full time. Sometimes I miss Architectural Technology and the large scale projects I used to work on, and maybe one day I'll go back to it.

What a year, redundancy, baby, entire career change to become a business owner. I sincerely hope the next year is calmer, but with just as many wonderful clients as we've had this year!

For now though I would like to celebrate the wonder that is being a wedding stationer. What other business can you become so involved in a couples hopes and dreams? We take personal memories, personal dreams and turn them into something which will announce to the world that two individual people are binding themselves to each other. We take these needs and hopes and create something unique, something truly special. We've worked on everything from snow-leopard print stationery to laser cut hot air balloons. In the next few months we'll be working on a truly unique, totally bespoke table plan which will be laser engraved into base wood and inlaid with mahogany. There is nothing quite like creating something beautiful and bespoke for couples racing towards one of the biggest days of their lives. That's what Graphic Embers is about, creating something personal or unique, something beautiful and memorable; just look at our wishing trees, the only two of their kind!

 Photo courtesy of Jan Rowley - May 2012

As well as our clients I've met so many wonderful professionals this year too, event dressers, cake makers, photographers and more, all enthusiastic, friendly and hard working individuals who I would be happy to call friends as well as colleagues in the wedding industry. I wish them all the best over the next 12 month and thank them for welcoming Matthew and I into the professional world of weddings. 

And as well as all that, today is Matthew's first Father's Day, so I would just like to say that I love you, my dear husband. Thank you for the beautiful daughter we already have, and the bump we saw a scan of last week. Thank you for starting my business when I was on Maternity Leave and being able to take it over again when bump is due. Thank you for a wedding that I still remember as one of the best days of my life. Thank you for giving me the confidence to kayak, and for cuddling me at night. Thank you for telling me I'm great, even when I feel like giving up. I love you, my husband, happy Father's Day.

Photograph by Halo Photography - May/June 2011

Thank you for reading.

Angela McGurk
Graphic Embers

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