I can now say that I have my very first stylized shoot under my belt! Boy is that a nice sentence to be able to type out. This shoot has been on my mind constantly for the last few weeks. I have to admit that as excited as I’ve been about it, it’s also been mentally exhausting. I’ve had sleepless nights just thinking about everything I needed to get done and how it would all come together, but I honestly could not have been more pleased with the results. So let’s go back to how this all originally came to fruition…
Keoji, my model, line sister and one of my biggest supporters had a shoot with me late last fall. We collaborated so well together that she was already anticipating our next session before even seeing the results from that current shoot. Thankfully she was pleased enough with those photos to still want to rebook me for her summer photos. So we began to embark on this stylized photo shoot journey. She had never heard of this type of shoot before but when I came to her with the idea she was all for it. So the next step was to seek out vendors that would be willing to donate either their time or products to make this happen. I have to admit that I was somewhat nervous about asking mostly strangers for help with this project. But the response I received was more than I could ever have asked for. Not only were they willing to help me out, but they were just as excited about this project as I was! Since I knew my theme would be ‘Whimsical Tea Party’ I knew I needed this to be as colorful and fun as possible.
Over the next few weeks all of the vendor items arrived and the vision I had in my head all this time was finally coming to life. Now the morning of the shoot didn’t quite go as planned, BUT I told myself there would be some hiccups along the way and to not stress over them too much. Well the largest hiccup was the weather. The shoot was scheduled for 8:30am and of course upon waking up that morning it was raining. My heart sunk to the bottom of my stomach. This was the only setback I couldn’t see myself working around. I think I even cursed at a few of the weathermen on television that morning for allowing this to happen. The MUA was able to come a few hours later so we decided to move the shoot back and hope and pray the rain would taper off and sure enough it did!
Once we arrived at the park we got a good 45 minutes of set up and shooting in before the rain decided it wanted to make a come back. At this point I was just glad to have some shots rather than no shots at all. So we quickly packed everything up and made our way to the car where we sat for a few minutes before the rain slowed down enough for us to find a nice wooded area of the park where we could finish shooting. We we were able to get another 30 minutes in before calling it a wrap. So did everything go as planned? No. But did everything work itself out eventually? Yes.
I will be forever grateful to those that helped to make this happen. It’s good to know there are still some genuinely good people in this world. I urge you to check out these vendors and their amazing products!
Makeup Artist: Melissa Wilmore / Email: [email protected]
Cupcakes: Simplee’ Amazing Events / Email: [email protected]
Cupcake Pedestals: simplified celebrations / Facebook
Parasol: Table Cloth Shop
Balloons: The TomKat Studio / Facebook / IG: @tomkatstudio
Pillows: The Bluebird Shop / Facebook / IG: @thebluebird_shop
