This wedding inspiration was photographed at Woodland Weddings Niagara months ago and there still isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t fawn over these photos.
This past year, I decided to finally start offering one-on-one workshops to other photographers. It felt like such a perfect progression for my business, and truthfully, nothing else has ever felt so natural as teaching has! By far one of my favourite aspects of these workshops is putting together styled shoots that reflect where I see each student’s business heading. After my sweet friend Jenna booked a one-on-one workshop with me, I knew that I would have to put together a styled shoot that reflected her as a person; nature-loving, romantic, and with a really effortless feel. What resulted is this absolutely stunning wildflower wedding inspiration that we photographed in the heart of Niagara wine country alongside an all-star team of vendors!
The incredible part about styled shoots is that you have the ability to work with vendors who you love to collaborate with or just admire in general. I definitely get the chance to work with some absurdly talented vendors on real weddings, but being able to pick and choose your team without a budget in mind is something that just isn’t possible for a client’s wedding! After I had a general idea for what I wanted to accomplish with this shoot, I immediately contacted one of my favourite wedding planners, Vivian Lyttle, who was someone I knew would be able to bring my vision to life flawlessly.
Ultimately, our goal was to bring together textural elements that were organic and natural to let Woodland Weddings’ wildflower fields shine.
Vivian and I teamed up with a few other favourites of mine including The Modern Bride, Erin of Mums Garden, Stephanie of Howell’s Bakery, and Lauren of Flourish Calligraphy, who you’ll know from previous blog posts is one of my absolute favourite human beings and by far the most talented person I know. After explaining our end-game, Lauren designed a jaw-dropping invitation suite with subtle hints of French blue elements that acted as one of the spring-boards for the entire shoot. The soft hints of texture in the handmade paper were translated throughout other aspects like the white and green bouquet that Erin put together with almost entirely foraged materials. One of my favourite aspects was the salted caramel cake that really brought in as much texture as possible and almost acted as an art piece on its own (not to mention was insanely delicious – I still have daydreams about it!)
Hilary and Sky could not have been a more perfect couple to act as our bride and groom for the day.
I talk about this really frequently on my blog and social media, but when it comes to styled shoots, I always use real couples instead of models whenever possible. Honestly, the main reasons behind this are because you really can’t fake the connection that two people who are in love have, and because I never want real brides to look at my work and think “well, my wedding photos wouldn’t look that good because I’m not a professional model.” I always want couples to be able to look on my blog and feel like they could be in the photos that they see.
With that said, Hilary and Sky definitely made my job easy on the day of the shoot. I don’t know if it is because Hilary is Vivian’s sister-in-law and they’re just super used to being roped into shoots with her now, but the love that they have for each other definitely showed through so easily! It actually shocks me that they’re not professional models when I think back to how comfortable they were in front of the camera.
