It was sometime between eight and ninth grade and I had a spent that summer at camp.  Every year, at the end of our session, we would have a big party.  A dance out in the fields to celebrate our final weekend with our friends.  During this particular summer, there was a boy named Alex that I liked.  He was tall, blonde and far nicer than I ever imagined a fifteen year old boy to be.  He asked to me dance that night out in the field.  We did some crazy line dance with the rest of our friends and had an amazing night.  Later on, as we all said our goodbyes, he grabbed me by the wrist as I was leaving and said “thanks for the dance…you’re super cute!”

In retrospect, I realize that I should have been flattered by this.  But at the time, I just smiled back at him, and wished that I could have been anything but cute.  Because – in my mind – babies were cute.  Mittens were cute.  Puppies were cute.  No teenage girl wanted to be considered cute.  And this was my life from here on in; I was the “cute” girl.  Not pretty.  Not beautiful.  But cute.  And I didn’t like it.

That was until one night after work during my third year of University…

I was just finishing up a shift when a colleague of mine and I were walking back to the apartment building that we both lived in.  It was the middle of summer and I remember it being the kind of night with a perfect warm breeze.  The kind of night that we spend all winter longing for.  And as we walked home, we started talking about our dating lives and the various dramatics that came with it.  Right then, my colleague looked at me and said “well, that tends to happens when you’re cute!”  I rolled my eyes…laughed under my breath…and let out a giant sigh of remembrance towards my teenage years.

An hour later I was sitting on the curb with him in front of our building.  People were walking by…traffic was constant, even at that hour of the night, and we ended up having a conversation that would forever change my perception of what I had heard for most of my life.  With his forearms resting on his knees, he looked over at me and said “you know, being cute isn’t a bad thing.  It might even be the best of things.  Sexy is intimidating…beautiful is overwhelming…but cute is non-threatening.  Cute reflects an aesthetic appeal that doesn’t keep people away.  Cute implies an attraction to both how the person looks and to who the person is.  Cute is something that people spend their entire lives wanting to be without even knowing it.”

Of course, the words of a twenty-five year old guy that I knew over a decade ago do not reflect the views of everyone.  I’m not that naive.  But those words did open up a possibility to me that I had never considered.  They opened up the possibility that maybe there was something to be said for being kind and approachable and gentle in nature.  That maybe the person I was highlighted my dark eyes and long legs instead of the other way around.  And this was okay with me.  In fact, cute has now become one of my favourite words.  One of my favourite ways of describing people that I truly adore.  And not because it’s what I’ve been called in the past…but because, once upon a time, while sitting on a curb, someone once used it to describe everything I loved most about other people.

Molly and Craig were my very last session of 2013.  For months we had been emailing between Ottawa and Victoria, and when we finally met over coffee before their photos, it was like we had always been friends.  I live for working with couples like that!!  We had the absolute best time doing their engagement pictures and I began to miss them the moment we parted ways.  But if our time together taught me anything…it’s that there needs to be a hybrid word for cute.  Something bigger.  Something more encompassing.  Something that says “Hey, I’m about the nicest person you’ll ever meet and I could also be on the cover of a magazine!!”  Because as great as the word cute is…it’s simply not enough for these two.

So, while I go about inventing a brilliant word that so eloquently describes all of this couple’s amazing qualities…please allow me to introduce you to Molly and Craig, who are so beyond cute…