The Weddings Issue

In 2019 The Washington Post Business section decided to produce a Weddings Issue, which featured stories that focused on the financial aspect of the wedding industry.  

My role, as the Business and Tech art director at the time, was to come up with the look and feel of the issue. After doing research and discussing it with the photo editor on hand, I came up with the idea to create origami using money. I acted as the art director and prop stylist for this project, playing a big role in the studio for the photo shoot. These stories ran in the print Sunday Business section, which I also designed.

Credits: Art direction and prop styling by Clare Ramirez; photo direction and editing by Annaliese Nurnberg; photographs by Katherine Frey; floral bouquet by Holley Simmons.

 

 

Research and Inspiration

After deciding on the origami concept, I began to do my research on how to make it possible. I watched many YouTube tutorials on how to make certain things out of money: this included dresses, rings, a slice of pie, and of course, flowers. 

Rose tutorial

Dress tutorial

Ring tutorial

After figuring out what type of flower I wanted to make, I started looking for inspiration on what could be our lead and prominent image. I was inspired by photos of  brides holding their wedding bouquets and decided our floral origami bouquet would be our centerpiece. Our inspiration came from the bohemian styles and fall looks, as we didn't want the feel of the project to feel too much like a traditional wedding.

 

Shoot Prep and Story Lineup

Once we figured out what the stories were, I began planning on what visuals could go with each story. For example, a story on how expensive it is to be a bridesmaid or maid of honor would be represented by origami dresses to represent a bride and her bridesmaids. A story on how more couples are living together before marriage to offset costs would be represented by a money house (a box wrapped in bills). 

I calculated exactly how many bills I needed to create the origami and took the money out of my own personal bank account. I began with the flowers so that I could give them to a local florist to incorporate into a bouquet. Then after creating the rest of the origami, we scheduled time in the studio to photograph them. I also asked a co-worker who recently got married to wear her wedding dress for us and be our model (her dress was also off-white which went along with our goal of not making the visuals feel too traditional).

 

Final Visuals

The resulting visuals were used both online and in print, including a collections link featuring some of the stories. In print, the photos ran as part of an expanded Sunday Business section, which I also designed.

Using Format