Lambert Floral
“Chī fàn!”
The words cut through the dull Napa Valley heat on an August afternoon, the golden hour glow sliced and seared by this tongue and tone. These words, Mandarin for “Let’s eat!” registered in my mind before I realized how unprepared I was to hear such a familiar Chinese phrase while standing in the middle of a formal English garden. Rising out of my perplexity, I looked up and around as the other creative contributors of the photoshoot we had just wrapped also gathered their belongings. Did anyone else understand what I had just heard? Surveying the crew, I hadn’t realized that almost all of us were Asian American – a Chinese photographer, a Vietnamese makeup artist, myself, a Chinese florist. But then my survey landed on the models – beautiful, elegant, White. Hearing “chī fàn!” had caused scales to fall from my eyes, understanding that when the rolls of film were developed, you would have no idea an almost all Asian American cast had hidden themselves behind the romantic portraits of our White bride and groom. “Chī fàn!” was an invitation to celebrate a job well done, to enjoy each other’s presence after laboring together to create beauty. But I was in no mood to celebrate after realizing the future damage we had done to ourselves.
This erasure of self was, in some ways, voluntary, and in other ways, involuntary. The wedding world has been complicit in exalting European beauty standards and the European lifestyle. Aesthetics become standardized, if not epitomized, and when that echelon is deemed supreme, Whiteness becomes the wedding world’s assimilationist goal. Portfolios need to feature White models, any other BIPOC models are tokenized or deemed “exotic” and “cultural.” Rectangular tablescapes are en vogue, and the “hero shot” of every photoshoot is the individualistic single place setting divorced from the context of the other guests around them. These rectangular tablescapes are then heralded as romantic and European. Meanwhile, round tables are relegated to the stigma of “cheap option” for clients who need to be more efficient with seating their guest count. This hierarchy then reflects poorly on cultures that value seating in the round, that encourage group collectivity and operating as an assemblage, a unit, a family.
Some of the worst advice I had received as a young florist was that I needed to make my brand be less “me” to attract the ideal client. I was told the ideal client, euphemism for a rich white bride, would never hire me if my brand made clear I was a Chinese American man, but they might go for my work if I hid behind veils of femininity and pandered to Whiteness. Although I rejected the advice immediately, the notion lingered. No wonder we were gathered in an English garden, salivating at the prospect of the White faces we could include in our portfolio that would grant us access to spaces our own faces wouldn’t.
We are creators. We dream of worlds not yet built and, against many odds, bring them to existence. The climate of the wedding world is ripe for change. And we’ve been assigned as its creators to rebuild and reframe with the same amount of vision we possess as designers. Flowers, in all their fleeting ephemerality, are the most brilliant display of flirtation between life and death. We are invited to behold and to put this beauty on blast, stewarding their magnificent final forms. I am always struck by the flowers that bend towards the light – reaching tulip and ranunculus stems made gnarly as they attempt to find illumination. This always feels like a satisfying and conclusive observation. But the reason why flowers bend to light is so much more important – it is to better hold the sunlight’s heat within their petals. To generate warmth in their blossomed cup and hold space for pollinators. We celebrate the flower’s quest for light but the truth is, we don’t acknowledge the bigger collective picture. The flower will expend its final ounces of life for the sake of another.
If the worst advice I had received was a thinly veiled “Don’t be yourself,” I wonder if its antidote is just to “Be yourself” or if it requires more. Because for too long, one type of aesthetic, story, face has been overly encouraged to be itself. But what did that do for anyone beyond that individual? I want this world to redefine the ‘hero shot’ from a single place setting to the full table itself. Realizing that to “be yourself” is only liberating if it also liberates your neighbor.
“Chī fàn!” was an invitation to partake in a celebratory communion after laboring well. I do not think our job is done, but I will gladly respond to this movement of “Chī fàn,” if only because it invites us all to the table.
Sammy Go is the Founder and Artistic Director of Lambert Floral Studio. He holds unwavering wonder for all things beautiful - whether it be a three part harmony, reconciliation, or a wild poppy growing from a crack in the sidewalk. He is a graduate of UC Berkeley, with a degree in Landscape Architecture. Sammy loves hand-pulled noodles, air drying after a dip in the pool, and the cello. Sammy is a third generation Chinese-American, living in his native San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, bouncing baby boy, and Frankie the dog.