What did I learn through my internship?

At my leaving breakfast with some of the wonderful people I worked with (apologies for the iPhone picture)

When I started my internship, 3 months ago, it was the first time I had worked in a 'proper' job that relates to my degree and the first time I had worked 9-5 in an office. I was doing marketing for City Gateway, a charity that focuses on bridging the gap between the affluent and deprived which is so common in much of London.  Before I started I had a few worries and whilst it's all still fresh in my mind I thought I would reflect on them. So here goes, the things I learnt in my internship:

Having had pretty bad attendance at school, college and then uni the concept of complete routine scared me. I'm so used to working on my own and having the freedom which that brings, like making the most of sunny days. Thankfully, the world of 9-5 isn't as terrible as I had previously thought, it brings about a different sense of fulfilment daily. It's also really nice working in a team where people can bounce ideas and express different point of view.

I already knew this, but there is a big gap of proactivity and organisation missing in my skill set, this leads to procrastination and things taking longer and being more frustrating than they should. I certainly learnt that if you want something to be a lot less stressful then plan it all thoroughly. I vow to take this lesson wherever I go.

It was certainly a boost in confidence, always working on your own means you start forgetting what your skills are. Working with a varied group of people was great and it meant I could reasses where my giftings are. 

Sometimes it's really great to push your comfort zones because you find out it wasn't as scary as you first thought aka excel (which I used to avoid like the plague) didn't kill me.

I've learnt lots about how people feel valued and how is best to communicate that value in order to have a cohesive and happy team. An add-on to this is that I've realised what a joyous privilege it is working with Matt as a team doing photography, so THANK YOU to all your gorgeous brides and grooms who make this possible.

And finally, as someone who has never really thought about a 'professional career' I now see what a blessing it is to live in London, a blessing I never would have guessed. There are so many opportunities and jobs and open doors. Although I'd love to live on a cliff next to a forest by a mountain with birds that sing, it would never have given me the opportunities London does. I had a really interesting, educating and fun time at City Gateway and it's really made me think about what I may be capable of ;)

I have my dissertation due in a couple of weeks and start a new job at a bridal shop any day now, hopefully I can get back to blogging soon because I have so many crafty things I want to share!

Has 9-5 always felt normal to you?

Live Music

Listener at Underworld, Camden.

Recently Matt and I managed to get tickets to see Damien Rice at The Palladium- we both love and admire his music so it will be a real privilege to see him live. Live music has been a big part of our lives. The book Matt proposed with had tickets to see live music to celebrate our engagement, it was at a random Camden gig we found the perfect band to play our wedding, Josh Flowers and The Wild, and now it's how we enjoy date nights. It's also coming up to a year since we were in NY so I thought this would be a nice post to recap such joyous times.

All the good bloggers say you should have a few list post’s here and there, so here is my first. 

My first gig: OkGo and Motion City Soundtrack at the Pyramids, Southsea. I was 14 and my parents came with me. Cringe/good parenting. 

I cried: This was the first time I saw Ben Howard, at Hoxton Bar & Grill in Dec, 2010. I just remember standing there transfixed.

The one where I met a (now) famous person: This is in no way my story, it's Matt's, for another time. I met Ed Sheeran twice, first at the Bedford in 2010 and then at a Foy Vance gig on Brick Lane. 

Most disappointing: There is a band called Listener that we really love and they finally came to the UK. Matt surprised me with tickets as they were playing on my birthday. It was the end of their tour and they were clearly tired and not so excited to be there, the audience heckled them and their sound was bad. It was bad and sad. Thankfully they redeemed themselves and a more recent London  show.

Biggest: I saw Liberty X and Blue and Blazing Squad at Wembly stadium as part of a girl guide event (ha,yeah)- but I was really young. Maybe this should be the real answer to question 1.

Most beautiful venue: I think there are lots that I've never been to, we'd particularly love to go to Traena in Norway. The other week our church (Christchurch Spitalfields) knocked through their massive crypt to make one big space. It's part way through completion and they decided to host a little show by Wilderthorn, it was very dusty, had great acoustics and was lit by hundreds of candles.

Warm fuzzy feelings: Ed Harcourt played at a lovely Islington venue around Christmas 2 years ago. It was all seated with hardwood floors, Christmas wreaths, grand pianos and mulled wine. We loved it fondly, he's playing at East Wintergarden in Canary Wharf soon and I'm sure it will be beautiful (you should go, yes you). 

All time favourite: There is no question about this, for both Matt and I. Last year in a moment of spontinaity we booked flights to New York. We then found out one of our favourite musicians, David Ramirez, was playing a couple of hours after our flight was supposed  to return to London, we were gutted. Hours before we were supposed to leave for NY our flight got cancelled, I actually cried. However, through many slightly miraculous phone calls to insurance we managed to extend our stay to make up for the lost day (and get upgraded to business class). This meant we could see David Ramirez. But when we went to buy tickets it was sold out, we couldn't believe it. Matt has a family friend who he'd not spoken to in years but we knew he had done some photography for David Ramirez so we messaged him to see if there was any chance of getting hold of David and seeing if we could get tickets. It somehow pulled together and we ended up on the Merch table in a beautiful venue called the City Winery in NY watching David Ramirez play (and because we were working our bar tab was wiped!). We then partied the night away with the band before heading our separate ways at 5am, just in time to pack up and get our flight back. This experience really cemented our love of both New York and David Ramirez. It has reminded us that we have a very loving and generous God!

So there you go :) a random blog post that made me happy to write amongst the busyness and seeming lack of adventure these past few weeks.

What's the best gig you've ever been to?

xx

Matt & Esther are Pinteresting

This week Matt and I have been working a little on marketing our wedding photography business via the wonderful medium that is Pinterest. We would love it if you would be willing to share the love by following, repining, sharing and liking our photos!

You can find our Pinterest here our Facebook here and our website here.

It is such an amazing opportunity to photograph a wedding, to watch couples commit to a life of loving one another. My favourite part of wedding photography is catching those loving glances and excited looks between friends and family.

It has been our absolute privilege and joy to photograph these weddings and engagements  over the summer- we can't wait to see what next year brings! Thanks for your help lovely friends :)

Wedding crafts for Romania

This past week we were away in Hunedoara, Romania to photograph a friends wedding. It was a brilliant week- a beautiful combination of  Romanian and Australian culture and full of displays of astounding generosity. I'm really looking forward to editing the photos, and soon you will be able to find them on our website and facebook page.

But today I wanted to show you a couple of things I made for the wedding, things that were very simple but felt quite genius (if I do say so myself). The flower crown above was made with wire, strips of an old silk scarf, pearl beads, a cheap hairband with flowers, gold thread and a cream ribbon. It suited the bride perfectly and cost £1.50.

Below is a wedding cake topper that Rosie (the bride) and I made together. She knew exactly what she wanted and it was my job to figure out a cheap way of making it. This is made from two 50p wooden spatulas from wilkinsons, two kebab sticks, some twine and material. The groom handily had a jigsaw so he cut the spatulas into the bird shapes, we then did some pyrography of 'We Do' and used a glue gun to attach the sticks and twine. So simple yet successful and only cost about £2.

I feel like I'm a little out of touch with the world recently. I'd love your comments/human connections- tell me your extravagant dream wedding cake flavour?

xx

How do you give when you have nothing?

         

I've been asking myself this question a lot. At the moment I have no time, no money and no energy. It's challenging and it's been a little journey of changing my attitude.

 I've come to realise it's not about what I can give from myself- it's about being generous with what God has gifted to me. And when you have nothing yourself you see how everything you have comes from Christ's provision. 

A consequence of this is you stop giving because you're great, but rather because God is great.

And He is.

Ps. See that church at the top, it's our new church. If you're in Spitlfields at 5 on Sunday come check out Christchurch- it's beautiful in many ways.

London

Sewing at the foot of the city

Coming back to London is often daunting. We hop off the tube at East Ham and are instantly confronted with homelessness, gambling addiction, alcoholism and  broken lives. Not to mention my pet hate, certain cultures believing it's fine to spit and throw rubbish on the street (arghh). It's like constant culture shock, each time we come back from visiting elsewhere. 

This past month we have been given the choice of moving, partially out of necessity. We prayed a lot, made lists and really dug into the reasons we are here. 

We realised that we feel ownership over this place we live, we care about these people, we want to see their lives  changed. It may mean we can't buy a house like lots of our friends, or that friends who stay from out of town will never be able to sleep in our noisy flat. That we may have someone living under the stairs in our block. We accept that the black soot that rests on our white windowsills is probably also inside of our lungs. I may not get to have a vegetable patch in my non existent garden!

But over the last few days I've caught glimpses of sights that you can't see anywhere else, that you don't get the joy of if you live out of the city. Orange sunsets reflecting off skyscrapers. The haze that falls over the docks.  Friday afternoon as all the children are let out of mosque. Houses lit up with lights ready for a wedding, and all the beautiful clothes that follow. Walking to the nearest shop at 11pm and the street still being busy. Having so many things and opportunities at your fingertips. The feeling of ownership you get when you pass people in the street you know and say hi. The smell of curry that drifts through our windows.

I just need to remind myself of this, often.

Summer

This summer has been SO busy, Matt and I have been at home for about 6 days over the past month and a half. It has been a lot of fun but there is also nothing quite like coming back to our home, especially on rainy autumnal days like today. 

These are all Matts iPhone pictures, I love the way he documents life and he was lovely enough to let me steal borrow these beautiful pictures for this post. 

 

Over the summer so far we launched a wedding photography business, I cut 5 inches off my hair which has not happened for yeaaaars. We visited Scotland with friends and I started my dissertation.  We said goodbye to Asel as she returned to Kyrgyzstan. We cycled through France & Italy which was challenging and fun. Did a week of youthwork in Stoke at Soul Survivor. I turned 22, Matt turned 27. Im starting an internship. We camped in hammocks and I visited my best friend in Bristol for the first time since her wedding. We still have another 4 days of camping at Davids Tent and a wedding to photograph in Romania, and then, summer will be over. I'm excited for autumn, although, as always, it feels like summer is going to be gone way too quick. I'm pining for autumn in New York.

You can check out our wedding photography at www.mattandesther.co.uk or Matt and Esther Photography on Facebook

Scotland

Matt and I just spent the most lovely week in the highlands of Scotland, in a town called Glencoe. We camped, which is ALWAYS risky in Scotland; there are midges, wind and rain galore. We went with some good friends, Bethan and Aaron and had a lovely week of fires, swimming in lochs and breathing fresh air. It was truly lovely and reignited my love for beautiful Scotland. We drove through lots of the places we passed en route to our first mountain of three peaks. It's also great to have friends you can happily spend a week in a tent with!

On Friday morning we are heading off on our 'proper' summer holiday. Matt, myself and 6 other friends and going to be cycling from Nice, France to Milan, Italy. It will be my first cycling holiday since I was about 10 years old. I'm a little anxious about all the cycling but so so so excited for the sea, the food, the wine, and the company :):) mhmmmmmm.

Have an awesome week!

90's Hen Party

This weekend Matt and I went to a wedding of a beautiful friend.  I just wanted to share with you the 90's party I put on as part of her Hen weekend.

I have no idea why we chose 90's theme but it was a lot of fun! I was on a tight budget so utilized as many things we had kicking around as I could.
I decided to do a loosely themed games evening. I didn't want the games to overtake the evening but as everyone was from a different area of her life I wanted to help break the ice; I think it was a success. When everyone arrived I split them into three teams (Becca's wedding colours), we then had 3 different tasks to complete to determine the winner. The first was using these plastic cups with blackboard paint and chalk. Everyone was given a cup as they came in and each had a different snippet of a no.1 song from the 90's. They got into their teams and had to guess the songs as quickly as they could- then they were allowed to drink. We then made them do a rendition of one of the songs with extra points for creative dancing!

I made some Nickelodeon straws, a 90's classic.

I had wanted to buy some cassette tapes from the charity shop, i totally assumed they would have loads, but alas, there were none. So I ended up making my own tapes for bunting using an old cardboard box.

Posh Jelly shots with sherbet on top. Im not gonna lie, these were pretty gross. I put bits of fresh mint in them but the flavour made the lime jelly taste really bitter. 

This was a lot of fun to make! All along I wanted to do some kind of photobooth, but this struck me as a more 90's way of doing things. The combination of Spice girls and these no headed funfair things really bought back the 90's for me.

This was by far my favourite activity. It was the final part of the evening and stolen from the 'Crystal Maze' TV show. At the end of the show 6 people would step into a giant crystal. There were silver and a few gold pieces of paper being blown around and you had to try and gather as many gold papers as you could. We recreated this by having everyone squeezed into our bathroom, I stood on the edge of the bath and threw the coloured pieces down with a fan pointed into them. They blew everywhere and it was hilarious. The team with the most blue pieces won. I made them from spray painted cellophane so they would catch the wind brilliantly.

Obviously there were some dance routines.

And some spinning top markers!

I love you Becca and am SO EXCITED to share this next part of the journey with you!

Two years of Marriage

Happy Monday everyone!
Today is our 2nd anniversary, a wonderful day marking a wonderful 2 years of being married to Matthew Way :) They have been the best years of my life, we have grown together, been challenged together and learnt to love each other, and those around us, more truly and deeply.

Here are two videos that only get shown every now and again, the first is our save the date, and the second is a little wedding video made by friends! They seem like so so long ago, but are still so close to our hearts:)

Thank you to everyone who has been part of these years, you are SO dear to us.

Save The Date: Now! from Matt Way on Vimeo.

Matt & Esther 21.07.12 from Sarah Caulfield on Vimeo.

What's next, weaving and Diana

Can you believe it’s nearly the one year birthday of this blog? I have absolutely loved having this space to document life and different creative projects, I have had some brilliant opportunities and met some even more brilliant people, just by having this little corner of the internet! I think thats really great, and I’m so glad I ignored those insecurities that told me there is no way I have anything worth sharing.

I’ve written a bit of a personal post about where Matt and I are at with life, our plans for next year and the hope we are holding onto. I wrote it on my old blog but if you like you can read it HERE.

Last week I did a crafty guest post over on Made by Molu. You should check out her blog! I wrote a tutorial for creating a weaving loom just using string and a chair- I actually really liked this project. Soumya is also a bit of a perfectionist so you can head over there to see what it looks like when someone takes lots of time and care over what they present (my pictures got a treat of a facelift!).  Have a look at the post HERE.

Look at that fancy writing! Photo courtesy of Made by Molu

And Lastly, I finally got my film developed from my time in France with Emily in February. I was using Matts Diana camera for the first time, this is evidenced by the fact a fair few of my pictures didn’t come out, this is mainly because I hadn’t figured out how to properly wind on the film! Ooops! However, there are still some nice pictures of France, and then of the Olympic park in London. I loved using this camera so hopefully I’ll have more success next time! Here's a selection for your viewing pleasure:

Beautiful sea and creepy bar

Icy bravery in February

Irish and Catalonia

The Orbit

Actually, one last thing, you should totally add Matt on Snapchat! His name is mrmattway and his stories are pretty hilarious!

Have a great week everyone- especially those onto their last weeks before the summer hols! x

Moroccan/Western fusion style candles

A little while ago a friend gave me some gorgeous material she had received as a gift but had no use for. When she offered it to me, I obviously had to say yes! It is supposed to be a blouse- but I wanted to find an everyday use for it.

When we were planning our wedding there was a huge part of me that wanted to have a Moroccan/western fusion and I am still drawn to all things vibrant, tonally warm and shiny.

I would love to do some kind of styled shoot with this, or find someone who would like to use this idea for their wedding.

I unpicked each strip of material, and attached it to the candle by pushing short sewing pins through the material and into the candle. I really love the overall look- it makes me want to buy loads of candles to wrap and put on every surface in our flat!

Happy Thursday friends! x

Mountains and Maternity

Firstly, I want to apologise that all these photos were taken on my phone, but I felt they are better than nothing!

This weekend has been such a busy one! As you may remember, a group of us from London decided to do the Three peaks challenge to raise money for youth charity XLP. We left early on Thursday morning to drive to Liverpool where we were to meet the rest of our team and the kind people who had volunteered to drive us between the mountains.

The three peaks challenge consists of climbing the three highest mountains in the UK, in under 24 hours. I guess it could be described as a mixture of pain and delirium. Things really did not go to plan. There were roads closed, there was traffic, there was a lack of training and even an injured ankle. It was pretty hectic- but it was BRILLIANT. We were constantly struck by the beauty of this country we live in. I loved getting onto the mountains.

Sadly, all the delays meant we didn’t have a chance of making it in 24 hours. However, had we gone to the last mountain on time we would have been walking in high winds, torrential rain and thick fog. I think maybe we were fortunate to be late.

The only downside was that this meant I couldn’t complete the last mountain as I needed to get back to London for a workshop I was running. I was a little gutted at first, but once I arrived at the workshop I was more than happy to sacrifice that last mountain. The workshop was part of a mum’s to be event hosted by Bump & Blush. It was great to meet everyone- all these Londoners from different walks of life. Most people there had been specifically searching online for events which are aimed at building community and friendships between expecting mothers. These ladies really highlighted to me just how valuable friends are. Having a support network during such a beautiful but challenging time is essential. It was great to see people getting on and talking about the joys and the challenges of pregnancy. I’m a big fan of the craft we were doing- painting and stencilling baby grows. I love how you provide a group of people with the exact same resources yet everyone produces something thats ’them’. Here are a few pictures of what people made.

The event had delicious food and (non alcoholic) drinks provided by Mama tea,  Porgies and Mangajo. There was a body oil making workshop by Kadria skincare. The ladies could have some maternity photos taken by Veronica and lastly they provided hand massages and manicures using pregnancy safe nail varnish by ‘Knocked up nails'. That is one hilarious name!

I can't wait for the next event!