A few weeks after Bryan and I got engaged, I found myself sitting on the hardwood floor of our apartment scouring pages of bridal magazines. Bryan would be on the couch – undoubtedly watching USC football highlights – while I went to town ripping out page after page of unique ceremony, cocktail and reception ideas. It was my happy place of sorts, sitting there on the floor surrounded by my newest friends: Modern Bride, Wine Country Weddings and print-outs from TheKnot.com. I would share with Bryan an endless array of ideas, from programs that doubled as fans to escort cards secured in half-cut wine corks. Always the patient and adoring fiance, Bryan would indulge me with a smile and a kiss; a simple act showing his (sometimes feigned) excitement over the tiniest of details behind our upcoming nuptials. His approval was enough to send me happily bouncing back to my cross-legged spot on the floor, moving on to the next magazine. It was an easy, relaxing time, one when our biggest worries centered around the outcome of USC's next home game (Bryan) and whether we really needed to narrow down wedding colors (me).
A mere six months later revealed Bryan and I in similar spots, with him on the couch and me, again, cross-legged on our hardwood floor. But this time the mood was not celebratory; rather, it was incredibly subdued as Bryan was fighting a brain tumor and would nap quietly for hours, resting away the effects of an intense regimen of radiation and chemotherapy. The silence of his sleep and the gravity of our new-found reality awoke in me a need to do something I hadn't done in 15 years: paint, draw, cut, glue, etc. I had always loved art as a child and a teenager, especially as a creative outlet during tough times. Well, this was definitely a tough time. So while Bryan napped I embraced my inner child and channeled Martha Stewart; cutting, spray-mounting and tying ribbon on 120 wedding programs and escort cards. I made quizzes for our cocktail hour, sketched out ideas for our Candy Land wedding cake and even glued hundreds of corks to picture frames, creating wine-themed table numbers. Seeing each and every piece materialize gave me a sense of accomplishment as well as control, a feeling that's often missing when fighting cancer.
I never thought that a simple art project would help me cope during one of the toughest times of my life, but it did. And when I look at Anna's photos of these simple details, the beauty of each shot hides their story well. But it's a story I'm proud to tell.
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415.401.0806 
anna@kuperberg.com
