This story was shot in New York City while I was a contributing editor working from San Diego, but I still had substantial input. Scroll down to see what I mean!

On the left is a page from the magazine; on the right are the notes, sketches, and inspiration photos I provided. I did this for a total of nine different styles—well, eighteen, since each had two variations. Four ran in the magazine, and five additional styles (you can see thumbnails of three) were online only.

I wish my younger self had been more assiduous about labeling when saving clips! If you’re not familiar with The Knot’s national magazine, it’s nearly the size of a phone book, and I hit a point in apartment living where I didn’t have the space for an entire library of back issues. Soo… the date on this one’s kind of a mystery.

I have a “produced by” credit on this story, but I also wrote the copy.

In addition to the aforementioned Yellow Pages-sized national magazine, The Knot also publishes numerous regional magazines. (Hence the awkward title, which makes more sense when you see it on a newsstand. The Knot Weddings New York, The Knot Weddings Florida, and so on.) These have content that’s unique to each market, but they also contain stories that run across all the issues—like this accessory write-up.