8/27 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

Such interesting submissions this week for the prompt “wedding”! [To see any image in better detail, simply click on it.] Our winner is Elizabeth Beck, who happened to be last week’s Breakfast interviewee. Elizabeth writes: “What is a wedding but a meeting of two hearts?” You can read more about this image at Elizabeth’s flickr site. Congratulations, Elizabeth — your $10 amazon.com gift certificate is on its way.

 

 

---

From Charuavi, two fascinating entries describing the weddings of her two daughters. Charuavi writes: “People have a lot of misconceptions about ‘arranged’ marriages. I hope my post will be helpful in clearing up at least a few of them.” Simply due to the considerable length of these two submissions, they are available here as a single PDF. It’s wonderful to have such an intimate slice of life from India! I do hope we’ll see more from Charuavi in future.

 

---

From Cathy Coley, a photograph. Last Thursday, Cathy sent in her submission with this note: “This morning, I took camera with me for our daily walk, and tried very hard to get a shot of the many pairs of dragonflies I saw, to no avail, the little flitters. So this afternoon, I took the kids to the Virginia Living Museum, and wouldn’t you know, I didn’t have the good camera, but I couldn’t pass up this humorous take on the wedding. So cellphone shot it is. Not great art, but fun.” [If you’re feeling voyeuristic, click on the image for a better view!]

 

 

---

From Juliet Bell, a photograph. Juliet writes: “I suppose this is a bit of a cheat, but I took this photo last summer at about this time, and just love it. I’ve been wanting to paint it, or do something with it, but haven’t had any idea better than the photo itself. When I saw the prompt for this week, I immediately thought of this photo. Doesn’t ‘The Wedding’ seem the perfect title? (If it is not apparent, it’s the inside of an Hydrangea blossom.)”

 

 

---

From Kelly Warren, photographs and personal narrative:

My wedding had several memorable events. the first actually happened about a week before the wedding. you see, my grandmother made my dress, yet three weeks before the wedding, my dress was still just a pile of material and lace in her sewing room. i knew she’d get it done, but it would be a last minute scramble. a week before the wedding, she finished it and asked me to come over and model it for a few of her friends. everyone oohed and aahhed, and then i went back to her room to take the dress off. it was at this moment that nana’s dog penny felt nana had spent entirely too much time with that dress and not enough time with her, so she promptly took the opportunity to relieve herself on it. nana hit the roof; i was amazingly calm and told her, “it’s okay, nana! we’ll take it to the cleaners and they will get it out!” as she chased the dog under the bed. and they did get it out…most of it anyway…there’s still a nice reminder of a stain on the unlining of the train.

and then there was the actual wedding itself. my dh called “time out!”, football style, smack dab in the middle of the ceremony. during the rehearsal the night before, the pastor really minimized the amount of verbage she gave him at once, so he told her she could give him a little more. apparently, day of, she gave him a bit more than he could handle. the whole church burst out laughing. all we needed was a whistle and a couple black and white striped shirts.

post wedding, my best friend becky actually spent our honeymoon with us! (too long of story to describe the reasoning behind that! it was a destination wedding!) we were scuba-diving one day, and while dh was taking a break on the boat, bec and i came up on a small nurse shark. small to me anyway, being a veteran diver. becky, on the other hand, freaked. she kept motioning to me and pointing at the shark while flailing around madly. i could literally hear her through her mouthpiece……(abbrevieated to keep it clean, and she rarely cusses)…” g-d-m-f shark! g-d-m-f shark! g-d-m-f shark!” dh said he could even hear her words popping out of the bubbles as they broke the surface. truly, it was a harmless little four-foot nurse shark. really can’t even take nibble out of you! it was a memorable week….

pictures are three of my favorites: me dancing with my dad; my nana and my great aunt livy (who my olivia is named after); and becky telling dh about the g-d-m-f shark:

 

---

From me (Miranda), a haiku and digital image pairing. My anniversary is this week, so I had some extra inspiration to work with. I played with one of our wedding portraits in Photoshop to create the image.

 

Wedding
The field was our own
universe, full of hope and
life among the grass

 

---

This week’s prompt: “Sunflowers”

Use the prompt however you like — literally, a cue for color, or a tengential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 8:00 p.m. eastern time on Tuesday, September 2. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.