Our locally grown styled shoot is one that I have been waiting to share since September! Not only is it low-key and intimately sweet, but it is also jaw-droppingly gorgeous. Much like the previous styled shoot Marlayna and I did, the vendors that we worked with completely knocked it out of the park. From the table florals to our bride's make-up, it is all stunning. Everyone worked so hard to make this shoot feel like a beautiful dream. It has totally paid off with our Baltimore Bride feature. Check out our Locally Grown feature on Baltimore Bride! My favorite part about this shoot has to be that the vendors we used are all from the Baltimore area. La Cuchara, our spectacular setting, is a charming, Basque inspired restaurant located in Clipper Mill. They source all of their ingredients from Maryland farms and markets, giving wonderful business to locals. It was a pleasure working with Candace Cage Design who took elements from the restaurants lattice design plates and incorporated them into the invitation suite. Marlayna and I are still in awe of those invites. Local Color Flowers brought so many vibrant florals to the tabletops and ceremony space. It's absolutely amazing to see a florist work, because they have such wonderful vision and it's almost magic to see them piece it together. We also got to include two perfectly crafted floral pressed guestbooks from UpDown Press and Bindery, which added a great pop to our reception scene. The loveliest part of...

We experienced first hand that spending money is inevitable when planning a wedding inspiration shoot. (Spending money for anything in life is pretty much a guarantee today, but that's a different discussion, haha.) At the beginning of the process for our Rose Quartz and Cobalt shoot, we didn't really think about the money that we would be investing in the session ourselves. When this styled shoot was just a small little baby, we only thought we would need flowers, a dress, and two models. But being the very high end thinkers and dreamers that we are, we noticed that this shoot was going to be much larger than having just three or four components. As Marlayna and I entered into the later stages of planning, we realized that in order to make this shoot match what was in our heads, we had to put forth some sort of monetary contribution. This included paying for the venue, gathering tablescape decor, and purchasing materials for our DIY activities. We certainly saved quite a bit of money by doing a lot of things on our own and gathering coupons for Target and Hobby Lobby. There is no shame in our coupon and final sales game, haha. We tried really hard to make sure we split the costs equally and that we weren't going ridiculously over budget for any one thing. We were thrifty in our purchases and definitely kept each other in check. And I never realized how awesome and beneficial...

Continuing my series on organizing a styled shoot, one of the most crucial parts to planning and executing a styled shoot is connecting with other creatives. Sure it may be possible for you to make invites or put together bouquets, but why would you want to if that isn't your specialty? In photography, it's kind of like thinking a cell phone will be the same quality as a DSLR. The easiest and most organized way to connect with others is to email the vendors you think would best fit your plan for the shoot. You can lay out your ideas after research, send them links to Pinterest, and give them a feel of your personality. I'm a big advocate for text messages instead of taking phone calls (sorry mom), so emailing is where I find the biggest benefits to communicating. 1. Create a canned response email. When Marlayna and I were reaching out to vendors, we used a canned response that allowed us to save writing time, which conveyed who we were to our new connections. We tried to cover the date that we had in mind, the general location (we hadn't yet finalized a venue), and what we were looking for. This allowed vendors to see that we were serious and had our thoughts in order. The only change we made to each message was to add some personalization. Here is an example of one of our canned responses to a local dress shop (name redacted since we...

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a little bit about the styled shoot that my friend, Marlayna, and I put together. The time leading up to the shoot was exciting, frustrating, and - at times - overwhelming. But we kept pushing forward, because we knew at the end something great was waiting for us. We truly weren't expecting all of the hard-work and beauty that everyone contributed to this day. Even though our final images have to stay under-wraps for now, I wanted to start a conversation about the behind the scenes of the shoot. As I said earlier, there was a lot that Marlayna and I put into this, and I feel like there is so much that we can share regarding the process of planning and executing. I am totally aware that there is just too much information for one blog, so I'll be organizing my posts into the different parts of a styled shoot. Organization is the key to staying sane. If you are planning a styled shoot either on your own or with a fellow creative, please utilize a service like Google Drive. I cannot tell you enough how huge this was in keeping us on track and professional. The ability to have a cloud system that can share spreadsheets and documents is a total lifesaver. For our shoot, we started by creating a shared folder. Anything that we needed from that point was readily available in the form of a spreadsheet...