Guest blogger :: Myra Callan

My name is Myra Callan and in the not so distant past (9-8-07) I got married to my love, Matt on a sunny and warm day in Gervais, OR. During the planning process for our wedding, I was completely inspired by the wedding world and all its high energy and latest fashion trends and ideas. After all the dust settled and I became a Mrs., I continued to be interested in the wedding industry in general and upon the encouragement of friends, family, and wedding professionals, decided to try my hand at becoming a contributor to the wedding world. I had long created hair accessories for myself, and decided that would be the path I would take for what has become quite the whirlwind experience. Having majored in the sciences and Geography, upon finishing grad school I worked a full time job as a Research Analyst for Forecasting for a couple years. At the end of January 2008, I launched twigs & honey : hair adornments, design, embellishments through the growing site, Etsy.com. With my first sale in the same week, things continued to snowball for the next couple months until I realized, I couldn’t maintain both a day job and my nightly twigs & honey job. As of a couple weeks ago, I’m now self employed and busier than ever with my fledging line. 

Happier than ever to be my own boss and a loving wife, I continue to love the world of weddings and work with brides from around the world all day long, 7 days a week. I have also maintained a twigs & honey blog and am now slightly addicted to wedding inspiration through various wedding planner and wedding blogs. When I heard that Elizabeth Anne Designs had put out an invitation for “guest bloggers”, I jumped at the opportunity.

This week of posts that I’ll contribute will be slightly offbeat in terms of weddings and should be perfect for those brides marching to the beat of their own drum. While studying Geography in Davis, CA, I learned about a term called Bioregionalism. If I try to define it in all its exactitude, I’ll likely butcher it so please “google” it for a better definition. What I liked about the term and pulled away from it was that people should be aware of what bioregion they live in and should also do things to minimize their environmental footprint. In doing so, it was encouraged that people (when possible) eat locally grown foods and use materials found in their bioregion. So in an effort to apply this loosely to the wedding industry and as a slight spoof, I’m going to coin the term weddingregionalism. I am not the perfect “environmentalist” by any stretch of the imagination, but baby steps are a good thing and why not apply this to your own wedding planning when possible? It’s empowering and gratifying and you’ll have to read this week’s posts to find out more about what the heck I’m talking about! The posts will also encourage DIYers so stay tuned for some hopefully, fun and new ideas for your wedding that you can do yourself!