Festive photo backdrop creates holiday good cheer and helps local food banks, too

Need somewhere to take a festive family photo? Wine Excellence to the rescue!

The local store has decorated the front of their store with beautiful greenery, lights and winter props for anyone to stop by and take a holiday photo, and is helping local food banks in the process.

“There’s no cost,” says Wine Excellence co-owner Jennifer Jerrett. “We just want people, if they can, to leave some non-perishable food items [for local food banks].” Donations can also be left by the door if the store isn’t open.

Jerrett got the idea after organizing the Kick-off to Christmas in support of The Door Youth Centre. A local photographer asked if she’d be leaving the decorations up for a few days so the backdrop could be used for photos.

“That got me thinking, there aren’t that many places in Huntsville for people to take really nice photos with a nice backdrop, especially if you live in an apartment or if you can’t afford to do up the front of your house really, really nice for Christmas,” said Jerrett. “[If] you’ve got kids and you want to take a nice Christmas photo, where else are you going to do that?”

The front of the business she owns with Brent Finn seemed like the perfect solution.

“It’s such a cute little building. It’s just perfect for that,” said Jerrett. “So I wanted to make it absolutely lovely so that people just walking along the street could come and sit on the bench and take a photo, or even hire a photographer and come and do it.”

She hired Lake of Bays Garden Centre to help with the greenery, added some lights and some winter vignettes next to the stairs, and gathered some blankets that people can borrow to snuggle beneath.

Jerrett enlisted the help of the Lake of Bays Garden Centre to create a beautiful winter scene

“They just have to come in the store and say ‘can we borrow one of the Christmas blankets?’ We’ll turn off the open sign and if it’s at night we’ll turn off the lights so they can have the best picture possible. People are more than welcome to come and take family photos here any time.”

Winter sports equipment adds fun detail

Wine Excellence is open Tuesday through Friday from 10-6 and Saturday from 10-2.

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