Life is busy, and much as we’d all love to do what we love all the time, for some of us our passions have to be pushed aside. For others, they can be become a side hustle, that extra little gig that helps out both financially and karmically.
Oli Sansom makes wedding arbours for day and night, for a generation raised on Daft Punk and Elon Musk. They can be dressed in florals during the day, and then are self-powered and to light up for the evening.
“I’ve photographed weddings around the world for the last 5 years, which has been a wonderful window into how we connect and celebrate. One thing became clear pretty quickly, though: there’s a lot of wastage, and a lot of materials and labour that get used for only a very brief amount of time. If you think about wedding arbours, they’re beautifully setup and layered with florals, and then torn down only an hour later when the ceremony is over and done with. I figured that if they were designed in such a way that they could be a centrepiece for the reception and morph into a new form that gets their guests talking, people might want to keep them around as their own stylistic mark on the day. I pitched the idea to a friend who is an incredible maker and electrician, and The Arbourists was born.
As well as wanting to create centrepieces of a certain style, Oli wanted to play a role in how weddings might begin to change: why not have the ceremony late at night in a moodier setting?
“Ultimately we’ve just enjoyed creating something that’s a bit of fun and given couples one option to jazz up their day a little bit, and it’s been interesting how the idea was generated by just keeping an eye out for what wasn’t being done in an industry I was already working in.”
Instagram: @thearbourists
