An Interview with Ellen Braunstein...
Ellen Braunstein, founder of Courtship Stories,
is a journalist who writes, designs and
publishes the stories of how couples met and fell in love. They are 12 page,
professionally designed, card-stock books, 5.5 by 8.5 inches. They are given to
all the wedding guests at the reception as a personalized keepsake and for
entertainment. She also does wedding anniversary books for large celebrations.
How did you start Courtship Stories?
I started Courtship Stories in 2000 out of necessity. Many of our wedding guests
had heard about the bold new way I had met my husband -- on the Internet. Mark
and I had no time to tell our mouse- to-spouse story to so many guests. I
remember thinking how I wished I had a handout for every time I had to compress
our story into a single sentence: We met online.
What is the importance of recording your Courtship Story in photos and words?
This is the origins of your family history. An engaged couple once described it
to me as the beginning of the rest of their lives. Family researchers suggest
that longtime married couples with vivid (hopefully positive) recollections of
their courtship have stronger marriages. Fond memories of a courtship will often
see a couple through rough patches in their marriage. I like to think of my
Courtship Story Books as the cheat sheet.
If we want to write our own Courtship Story, where do we start?
I am used to writing for an audience. Readers are most interested in the juicy
parts -- how you met and how he proposed. So to keep your readers awake, fast
forward a bit through the middle. Try to include all the details of the first
encounter, physical impression, the circumstances. Jot down any humorous
memories. Then focus on the markers: The first date, the first time you said I
love you, the time you knew your spouse was the one. Then describe a couple of
incidents or developments that advanced the relationship, moved things forward.
It might be a setback. End with the proposal. It's best to have your spouse do
his version of the events. That's what spices up the story. I often suggest
telling it in a dialogue: Mary: John:
Are you a scrapbooker?
I am not a scrapbooker, but I am influenced by scrapbooking. I started out as a
newspaper feature writer with a concentration on family stories. We always
received snapshots along with the professional photos taken by our staff
photographers to illustrate the stories. I learned to treat snapshots with the
utmost respect and make sure we improved the scans through Adobe Photoshop so
they would really shine in a newspaper. Our page designers would tilt the photos
and put white borders around them to give them that homespun feel.
We use a lot of snapshots in our Fun and Casual style of Courtship Stories
Books. The more formal versions use strictly engagement photography. We print
the snapshots large without borders. Using Photoshop, we take advantage of dead
space in photos and cover them with boxed quotes.
I think scrapbooking most influenced the design of our Anniversary Book. Our
Anniversary Books are 16 pages instead of 12 because there is a longer story to
tell. We write a detailed Courtship Story, then follow it with "through the
years" photos peppered by quotes from the couple and family.
For the 25th anniversary book now on our website, many of the photos were taken
in the '70s and '80s and had color distortions. Our designer sharpened and color
corrected each. She used an Illustrator program to put a white border around
each photo. Then she added silver corner photo holders and shaded them to show
dimension. She used a palette of browns and beiges for the pages. It works
well for the vintage look of 50th anniversaries and the more updated
scrapbooking look for 25th anniversaries.
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