She’s a Full-On Monet
“She’s a full-on Monet.”
“What’s a Monet?”
“It’s like the painting, see? From far away it’s okay, but up close it’s a big ol’ mess.”
I am a child of the 90’s. If you knew what I was referencing from the title of this blog, you probably are as well. And if you were not immediately on the same page with me after reading the above quote, then I’m excited for you! You have yet to discover the classic cinema time capsule that is 1995’s Clueless starring Alicia Silverstone.
Briefly, it is a coming-of-age teen comedy that centers around Cher, a high school girl who navigates the typical teen experience: school and homework, crushes and flirting, learning to drive. However, Cher is not the typical girl next door, that is unless you happen be one of the Beautiful People and live in Beverly Hills. Clueless was a film that focused on the cool kids, not the nerds. This was not the story of a ragtag group of losers who end up becoming king and queen of prom. This was a story about kids who had everything and still struggled with the everyday issues of growing up. And while it embraced the mythos of the rich and famous, showcasing the vapid superficiality of high school amplified by hyper privileged characters, the film itself was an adaptation of Emma, a novel by Jane Austen from 1815 and acted as a satire exploring exactly why doing good for others and having a purpose in life is a much more noble (and fulfilling) calling than shopping ‘til you drop.
If you’ve read any of my blogs here on the Silk & Shadows website, you know that this is the point where I connect this seemingly random bit of pop culture about which I am writing to the wedding business and/or the business of getting married. So here it is – pay attention to the details. As a quick refresher for those of you who are not Art History enthusiasts, Claude Monet was a French impressionist painter whose work is stunningly beautiful when viewed at a distance, but up close it’s a jumble of confused chaos and blobs of color or as Cher puts it, “… a big ol’ mess!” This serves as a strong metaphor and cautionary tale for what your wedding could become, both good and bad.
So what does this have to do with the price of eggs?
Ava and I recently attended the Portland Wedding Show. Ava wrote a blog about our experience there, which I recommend reading as she makes some good observations about the wedding industry and how it’s represented here in Portland, OR. While we were networking at the show, which was at the Oregon Convention Center, we secured an invitation to an open house for a certain local hotel. I will not reveal the identity of the establishment by name, but I will say that when we attended several weeks later, it was a full-on Monet.
Ava has very high standards when it comes to beauty and presentation. Part of this critical eye comes from her cultural background and part comes from her personal style and aesthetic preferences. So when we go out and she says that something is beautiful or that “… this is nice” that actually means that she is very impressed and the quality is out of this world. To paraphrase Ava’s words as we arrived to this open house event, “This is just sad and pathetic.” I am most definitely the diplomat of the two of us (Ava is not mean or abrasive, just very direct), and I usually am able to find positive things to say, but in this case, I could not agree more.
An open house for a venue is an opportunity to showcase to the world what you are capable of doing. It is a time to show potential clients why they would best be served to book their event at your place. It is a time to showoff and peacock and go wild, because the competition out there is fierce. It is also a chance to show other wedding professionals (like Silk & Shadows) why we should bring our clients there. So with this much riding on the experience, you would think that this hotel would pull out all the stops and wow us. Think again.
Ironically enough, I have chosen not to go into minute detail here regarding the shortcomings of this particular venue. I’m not here to tear anyone down. However, I will suggest that your wedding guests will spot a Monet almost at once. Some centerpieces filled with water and others not; tablescapes set with not even the bare minimum, but plates at three of the six places (an attempt at a pattern?); price tags left on the plastic flowers in the centerpieces and on the tables. When we walked into the ballroom, it looked nice, but the longer that we spent in there, the more everything became, well, sad and pathetic. Oh, Monet…
Attention to detail is so important. And this is a term that gets batted around often, especially in our industry. The fact of the matter is excellence is in the details, the distance between good and bad is nothing compared to the distance between good and great. Detail work is where intention transforms into that indefinable quality which the French call Je ne sais quoi. Why is floral installation so much better, so much more attractive than this other one? It’s the detail work that sets it apart. If you can handle on more linguistic analogy (can anyone tell that I’m a linguistics nerd?), the Greeks have a single word for when an artist or artisan takes such care in the creation of a piece that they leave a part of their soul there, embedded within the work. This word is Meraki, the essence of oneself. When Silk & Shadows takes a contract, it is not simply a gig for us. There is a deep trust and honor that goes with planning and overseeing the day where a couple decides to devote their loves to one another. So everything that we do in relation to that special day – planning, design concepts, decorations, sourcing vendors, the execution of the entire experience starting from our very first interaction with a potential client to the moment where we close the door of the venue behind us after everyone is gone and we have left it better than we found it – we do with Meraki. This is to say that not only are we proud of the work we do, enough to put out names on it, but that we strive to leave a part of ourselves therein that lives on in the details, because Impressionism works for art, but not for a wedding.
