Imitation

So, outside of school my very good friend and I have a wedding decorating and coordinating business. I love my job, but I also enjoy this new venture in my life as well. I get the chance to use my creative side by designing and arranging new venues for special events. I am always planning a party, how fun is that!

We work so hard to come up with creative and exciting ideas for the people we work with and for and because of that, by word of mouth, our business is very productive and exciting.

Brainstorming for us is getting together and hitting Jo Ann fabrics or Hobby Lobby and doing a little visual shopping. We also do a lot of Internet reference as well. But one thing we are so proud of is that our ideas are our own. It may take us a little longer, but then our clients get a one of a kind event and things turn out great!

I understand that "imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery" however when someone imitates you or your work, sometimes it is a bitter pill. We have had that happen to us recently, and I am not sure how to take it. I know it shouldn't bother me, that it should make me feel good knowing that someone else enjoys our work enough to reuse our ideas. However, when it took us a while to come up with things, it is awful tough to be OK with it. My other concern is that when we feel we give our clients that individual personalized event, we turn around and see someone else giving their client our same event, it isn't so personalized anymore.

I guess my thoughts are if you are going to be a in a creative business shouldn't you be able to be creative enough to come up with your own ideas or at least make them your own by alteration? I don't know, something to think about.