How We Built a Garden Tea Party in Our Arvada Backyard
By Lily Borak · October 29, 2026
In October 2026, I spent a day and a half turning our backyard in Arvada, Colorado, into a garden tea party: a pond with stepping stones, a table on a platform over the water, real plants, flowers everywhere, and moss tucked into every seam. Then I photographed two tea parties in it, one for a group of little girls and one for grown-ups. It was the first set for my Storybook Portraits sessions.
I'm a storyteller at heart. Normally, I create expansive worlds through writing. Only recently did I think to bring the fantastical off the pages of my novels and into physical space for my photography.
Why I built a world instead of finding a park
Most portrait sessions start with a location: a park, a field, a good patch of evening light. I love those sessions, and they're still the heart of what I do. But people also ask for something different, a themed session instead of a park, and that's what Storybook Portraits is. Instead of finding a place, I build one, and every detail in the frame is a choice. Plus I have access to water!
I fancy myself a bit of an interior designer, and that eye doesn't usually get to come along to a regular photo session. Here, it's welcomed alongside my storytelling sensibilities.
A day and a half, a lot of timber
I started with the pond. I laid the timber frame myself, and my husband Eric helped me lay the tarp and set the stones on top of the wood. Together we moved in the platforms and the stepping stones, so a table could sit out over the water and guests could walk across to it.
The big plants are real, which had to fill the space toward the back. The flowers are artificial, some bought for this set and some I already had. The tea set, the linens, the flagstone, and the moss came from what I already owned, as if their purpose all along was to wait patiently for this moment.
The last thing I did was the moss. I packed it by hand into every corner and around every stone, to hide where the tarp, the stone and the wood meet. It's the part nobody notices in the photos, and it's what makes the pond look like it belongs in the garden. The details matter because the lens of my camera doesn't lie when the small stuff is missed.
My background is in project management, so I loved this part: a plan, a deadline, and a delivery date. Taking it all down afterward took two days and was a bittersweet reminder that art, in its ephemeral nature, points to the journey rather than the destination.
The sessions
On October 10, the girls arrived first. The table was set with tea sandwiches I made myself and pastries from La Pâtisserie Française, a bakery that has served Arvada for more than 34 years, and the girls wanted to play with all of it. There were petits fours, cupcakes, and a colorful assortment of macarons. Instead of tea, the girls were served a delicious Huckleberry Lemonade that I found locally in Georgetown, Colorado.
Later, a group of women came for the grown-up version, in lace dresses, wide-brimmed hats and fascinators, adorned with sparkling statement jewelry by Andrea Li Designs. The entire scene provided the perfect backdrop, with tea poured from a floral teapot at the same table over the water. A little dry ice sent fog drifting across the water.
What I'll always remember
What I'll always remember is how much fun it was to design something and then see it all the way through. I love planning and building toward a delivery date, and here it ended in photographs that feel unique and memorable.
And I loved seeing the little girls and my models so excited about the set! They didn't just pose in it, they wanted to play in it and interact with it. The shots came easily when the environment played a character, lending imagination and a sense of being swept away to a land far, far away.
It was hard work, but a lot of fun. It was the perfect fusion of my favorite creative pursuits, with a specific outcome: bringing a singular vision to life.
What comes next
Storybook Portraits sessions in the Dream Tea Party set are open now. A session is 60 minutes for up to 6 people, tea service included, with styling guidance and at least 40 professionally edited, high-resolution images in a private online gallery, plus a print release. Additional time, DJ service, pastries, and videography with a 1 to 2 minute finished film are available for an additional cost.
The starting session fee is $850, and a deposit of half the session fee holds your date. It works for families, couples, birthdays and milestones, and friends celebrating together.
I'm already dreaming about the next worlds: a night circus, a winter palace, a lantern-lit street inspired by vintage Kyoto, a medieval castle, a hot air balloon adventure, a theater stage. If one of those is your story, tell me. Each new world is built once its first sessions are booked.
Book a Storybook Portraits session
Credits
• Set: built by Lily Borak, with help from Eric
• Pastries: La Pâtisserie Française
• Behind-the-scenes video: Kris
A short look at the day: the finished pond and table, fog from the dry ice drifting across the water, guests arriving in their hats, and me at work behind the camera.