I’m still not quite sure how it happened, but about a year and a half ago, I became a small business owner.

My husband and I rent out photo booths. And the booths are amazing. I can say this without sounding like a Braggy McBraggerson because I had very little to do with their actual construction. My husband designed and built the actual booth, and wrote the software that makes it run. My mom sewed the gorgeous red microsuede curtain that became our namesake.

I’m just the girl who said “Wouldn’t it be cool if we had a photo booth at our wedding?” back when my husband and I were brainstorming ways to make our reception fun and memorable.

But that’s a whole ‘nother story.

Mostly, we take the photo booth to wedding receptions. But we’ve also had people reserve the booth for proms, anniversaries, and one super swank 16th birthday party.  This year, we were hired by the Freedom Festival, an annual community celebration in my hometown, to bring the booth to a few of its summer events. Outdoor events.  The first event was rained out. The second one though, the Great Cardboard Boat Regatta, was held on one of those days with nearly perfect weather — blue skies, mild temperatures, oh, and crazy strong wind gusts.

Turns out that big red curtain serves as an excellent wind sail. We called in emergency back-up (ie: my parents) to run over an assortment of supplies to tie down the curtain so that patrons could get into the booth without fighting yards of fabric.

This is how Ryan — that’s my husband (cute, right?) — spent much of the afternoon, securing and re-securing the curtain against the wind. We still got some motion from the wind, and you could see the curtain flapping around in some of the photo strips, but, hey, that’s just one more reminder of the great day. (And maybe of the humorous site of the wind blowing so hard that it kept pushing those cardboard boats backwards as they tried to run their races.)

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