So what's my motivation for this scene?

Several years ago, this quote was part of a humorous slew of jokes that made the rounds. Usually being said by actors who pretty much played the same kind of character in every movie. With over 35 years experience in acting/directing/writing and watching live theater, I found some of them to be particularly hilarious.

Over the past couple of months, I've had several women closer in age to my generation ask, "Where were you 20 years ago when I was planning my wedding?" or "Where were your services when my daughters were getting married 8 years ago?" And it made me think about my motivation for The Bride's Secretary.

I guess it was borne of several things that finally merged into one.

35 years ago, when I was planning my wedding, you "created" your invitations by going into your local print shop and choosing from the dozen or so layouts they had in their catalog. So I chose the only (light) blue mottled card stock - my colors were silver and midnight blue - and let the young man behind the counter talk me into silver foil lettering. Yep, I really did. And if you have any experience with art/graphics/photography, etc., you've already guessed what a huge mistake that was. You had to hold the invitation up to the light and move it around until you found the right angle that gave you enough contrast to read it. I can laugh now but at the time, I was devastated and I didn't have the money or time to get it reprinted.

Fast forward a dozen years and I'm introduced to this thing called Photoshop that looked like graph paper on my screen. But you could create newsletters with it, if you gritted your teeth and determined to get through the learning curve! Add that to an already artistic personality, a scrapbooker and a surprising excitement for the smell of new software CDs right out of the packaging ... and you have the birth of a love for all things graphic design.

Some would call it an obsession rather than a love (insert husband nodding his head vigorously) because the world looked different to me now - or maybe I just looked at it differently. I've never seen any print advertising since - billboards, flyers, posters, even the church bulletin - without either critiquing it or wondering when/how I could incorporate a specific idea into whatever I was doing at the time. Specifically, I made it through the WordArt years relatively unscathed and became a total font junky. My husband and I are back to traveling a lot as we are now empty nesters and he must be tired of listening to me chiding companies for spending "all that money on a billboard that was so poorly designed," mostly because of the text: too hard to read, too small, too much, too...a lot of things.

So as you mix all of those into a creative stew and bring it to the table of your youngest son getting married and asking you to design their invitations, you serve up a desire to start that business you've always dreamed of. A combination of lots of things you love to do. And, with plenty of encouragement from that DH, The Bride's Secretary is the main feature on the menu.