a dreamy world.

I am a HUGE dreamer, which can sometimes drive me up a wall because reality can be a huge buzz kill when I've made up a lot of things in my mind as how I'd like to envision them. But, these two photos capture a dreamy-like world perfectly and I am so in love with them. They capture everything I love all in one.

The first photo I took from Rifle Paper Co. Instagram account. I assume this was a photo taken of the window display for one of Rifle's retail stores and the time of day was at dusk (my favorite) and the reflection of the cars and street lights morphed in perfectly with the highly executed cut outs of what I like to call retro synchronized swim diver paper dolls. These kind of photos are what I call happy accidents, where the unexpected outcome becomes so magical that you'd never be able to reenact or recreate it ever again. For me, this photo screams the magic of summer, when you're still frolicking around in your swimsuit at dusk as the southern humidity wraps its arms around you and the fireflies flicker to light your way through the night. And if I had it my way, this is how I'd dress, with my rubber floral swim cap and my classy chic retro suit. Like I said, I'm a huge dreamer and you're prob thinking I'm on a whole different level and I should probably get my head out of the clouds...

Well, before you stop me, the last photo is my favorite. As you know, when I was home in June, I was working on a project with my friend, Alex Steele who is a professional photographer and a great one at that! I highly recommend her for those of you looking. I won't get into the whole story again, but long story short - I had her photograph my mom and I at my favorite plantations I grew up next to in my wedding dress to make up the time when I didn't get married in Georgia and my reception wasn't on the lawn of The Swan House like I had planned for it to be my whole life. Wah, wah, wah, sob story I know - but this was truly special for me and it was very personal for my mom and I, as she and I had designed my wedding gown from three different Grace Kelly dresses in my favorite film of hers, "To Catch a Thief." Therefore, I wanted my mom in a lot of the shots with me, and when it's all said and done, I plan on making a photo book of our story of the design along with these images as a gift for my mom. Okay, now that we've got that covered...

Alex is still working on developing the photos from the shoot, but she shared with me this "happy accident" that was secretly to me a small little blessing as stupid as that sounds. What happened was one roll of the film blended in with another roll of film and created once again, the most dreamy and magical shot in all the land. Half of the photo is a portrait of myself in my wedding gown in Atlanta, Georgia on a hot June day in front of the historic Swan House where I would have had my wedding reception. The Swan House is so Great Gatsby to me, I can hardly handle it, as it was built in the 1920's. The other half of the photo was shot in July on a lake in Wisconsin. Together, these two scenes really sum me up in every way possible. When my friends saw this photo, they read my mind and said that this photo captures everything about me, "It's so Skeleton Key."

If you don't know already, I'm like a modern day Nancy Drew with southern flare. I love mysteries, I love learning of the past, I love clues and spooky occasions, I just love the thrill of ghost stories and all that jazz. Well... if you've ever seen the movie "The Skeleton Key" starring Kate Hudson, I will have you know that that movie was loosely based on my life. I'm really not kidding. Kate Hudson, who happens to be one of my most favorite people, stars in a movie that takes place in the deep south of New Orleans, stays in a plantation (that is haunted might I add) along the bayous, where Voodoo and ghosts of slaves give this thriller a startle. Kate spends her time going to jazz clubs and eating gumbo. Well, yeah, that is me in a nutshell. No I don't practice voodoo but I can admit that I love learning about it and I grew up visiting islands and places along the coast of the south where the Gullah people rely heavily on it and practice it, and it's just part of the culture where I grew up and it's amazing and eerie to learn about and I get such a high off of it. With all that said, is this photo not the Skeleton Key to you? Or at least a skewed version of it? It's just perfect for me. It sums me up in so many ways. The photo is magical, eerie, southern and beautiful all in one. What a special photo I'll always have for the rest of my life. Really, if my life was a film, this would be the movie poster for it and it would most likely just be a sequel of the Skeleton Key, mixed in with some Gone with the Wind. A girl can dream, right?

And obviously, a'dreaming I will do.