I've always enjoyed the rose garden, and this was a good opportunity to illustrate it. The last line of the poem really struck me: "wedding dresses bloom." I know that a lot of people go to the garden to have wedding pictures taken. So I was originally thinking of a picture of a couple having wedding pictures taken. Then I decided to relate it more to my college experience. I've often seen couples in the garden, so I started to think of the wedding dresses in bloom as things developing.

I had my roommate and her close friend, who are really quite comfortable with each other, pose for me. And it was fun. I mean, we went out and I was, like, "Act like a couple." And they were, like, "Ummm, how do we do that?" We did a couple of different poses, and this one, with her head on his shoulder, on the bench, seemed to work the best.