One small step for women, and one giant leap for womankind: Just don’t get…arrested?
Yes, you read that right. Arrested for a moon globe.
This project was the very first project we did as a company so naturally, we wanted to do a test run before we set it up for the client. We wanted a pretty backdrop and my backyard with my daughter’s trampoline and water balloon leftovers were not the accents we were going for. One of my best friends said, “Hey! I know where we can go!” and proceeded to tell me that the pastor to her church was on the board for one of the local wetland parks. I knew the park, and I knew it would be perfect. Assuming that we couldn’t be in the park after dark, I told her the breakdown might run after sunset because I really wanted photos at dusk. She assured me it was fine because a.) she already called her pastor who okay’d everything, b.) we live in a quiet little town, and c.) all we had to do was name drop if needed, and it would be fiiiine. No big deal, right? We got this.
We worked just under 4 hours between loading and set up. We had just finished taking the photos and we were marveling at our work. It was September, the fall elements demanded our attention. The light was gorgeous, crickets were chirping, and the sunset glistened over the wetlands. The candles were lit, and the whole vibe felt like The Notebook and Boho style had a baby. Everything turned out perfect. We were chit-chatting and we see a black car pull up out of my peripheral.
It was a police officer.
Then another one.
Now, I don’t hang from chandeliers or anything, but my bestie is a pastor’s daughter. Between the two of us, neither are too keen about police officer visits unless it’s at the Halloween parade and they’re handing out candy. At this point we are shaking in our boots! To make matters worse, the officer told us that a local resident said there were teenagers setting up a tent in the park. Despite the whole situation, I’m going to take the teenagers comment as a win for these middle-aged mommas! We ensured the officers that we received permission from one of the wetlands board members and that we just finished up some photos and would be taking it down. (For the record, they loved our work.) They took our names, pastor’s name, and while both of us were nauseous with anxiety, they went back to their patrol cars and proceeded to make a few phone calls. We frantically started taking everything down and we were convinced we were going to prison.
He comes back and tells us that one of the other board members said it was most definitely not okay, and that we had to get out of there like, yesterday. I don’t ever think we’ve ever done a breakdown so fast. The one officer came back to check on our progress and then after what felt like forever with him watching us from his patrol car, he took off after he was satisfied with the amount we had taken down. We could tell he felt bad, but his unspoken language did nothing to curb our anxiety. After the last officer finally left my friend fell to the ground. By this time of night, the grass is soaking wet, but she couldn’t have cared less because for about 15 minutes, she had a full-send panic attack. I’m shaking, worried about the officer, worried about my friend, and I wanted to leave the country. I thought to myself, I’m never doing this again. Ever, ever, again.
Being the rockstar my beloved friend is, she pulled herself out of it and helped me load the rest into the trucks. We survived another day. We laugh about it now, but we could barely talk to one another for the next couple of days in fear that the other might be an indicted criminal. We are happy to say that we are over the moon happy not to be imprisoned. We both say how we are still glad we did it because the moon globe is one of the most popular event products we have and now we have one heck of a story to tell everyone in how our first send-off went. So, you see…even faced with jailtime, we say persevere and shoot for the moon.
Conclusion: Worth it.
