Vendor Spotlight :: LV Creative Designs

Peonies, hydrangea, garden roses, ranunculus... when it comes to flowers we're snobs. So much so, that when Maggie got married we had hundreds of white hydrangea and yellow garden roses delivered to the venue 3 days early. We had to book an extra hotel room just to have enough space to keep these beautiful buds cool while they opened. We cut hundreds of flowers then stuck them in buckets, trash cans, and bathtubs until we were ready to create our centerpieces. The morning before the big day we set up shop in the reception space with the other vendors and got to work, arranging those fluffy white hydrangeas into perfectly cloud like centerpieces. The morning of the wedding we were up at 6am to wire roses and hand tie 7 bouquets. Were we crazy? Yes. Couldn't we have just hired someone? Yes. Was it worth it to do ourselves, giving us these memories and personal connection to the wedding day? You betcha.

We thought about doing the flowers for our styled shoot ourselves for quite some time, but as we became more and more involved we realized there just wasn't going to be enough time for us to dedicate to the flowers. Throwing something together last minute was not an option, so we enlisted the help of our new friends at LV Creative Designs.

Linda lives locally and was willing to help right away. When she asked for inspiration, we told her the story of our little vintage elopement. We told her we wanted the flowers to be simple, minimal, and look like the had Groom picked them himself from his Mother's garden. We described the flowers as looking "handpicked and hurried", since we wanted the entire look of the shoot to seem thrown together by our Groom. Linda understood where we wanted to go, jumped on board and got to work.

Linda must be able to read minds, because she was able to give us exactly what we wanted based on just a conversation or two. The yellow tulips starting to open, the heavenly white ranunculus with curved stems bending in just the right places, the delightful little craspedia, the delicate lace that tied the bouquet together... so many elements to her work made it exactly right, and perfect for our shoot. She even used twine around the milk jug vase, just like our couple's wedding bands! Linda nailed it. We were so happy with her work, we may never do our own flowers again.

If you're a flower snob too, and you appreciate the art and craft of floral design, you are going to enjoy this post. For some, flowers are somewhere in the middle of their wedding to do list. For us they came in 3rd, only falling behind setting a date and finding a photographer. If you're like us, you're searching high and low for a high quality, reasonable florist for your wedding. Well we found them... learn more about LV Creative Designs here.

Thanks again to Linda for all of her hard work, and for always having such a bright and happy demeanor. It was a true pleasure to work with you.

Vendor Spotlight :: Michelle's Cakes

In one of our all time favorite movies, George Banks describes his daughter's wedding cake as "flour and water" as he tries to control his temper over the cost of said cake. Although a cake may be made from simple ingredients, it is by no means just "flour and water". A wedding cake is a centerpiece. It's a work of art. It's an experience. In fact it's the one element of a wedding day that we get to admire for its beauty and then devour as we attempt to talk with our mouths full about how good it is. So I hate to say it George, Annie's cake is fairly priced, so just write the check.

Can you tell we love cake? Well we do. And when we were designing the details of our styled shoot, we knew we wanted a sugary masterpiece to be its centerpiece. Enter Michelle of Michelle's cakes. This woman has been blowing us away with her tasty treats for a long time. She has been there to create beautiful cakes for several of our personal parties and events, including an adorable one for Maggie's baby shower. Every time we have made very specific requests, Michelle just says "sure, no problem" and effortlessly whips it up. We swear she must have magic cake fairies who live in her bakery. From her incredibly realistic sugar flowers, to the actual dig-in-and-eat it part of the cake, there's nothing quite like a cake from Michelle. Naturally, we begged her to work with us on the shoot, hoping she'd say yes and have the time to do it. Her response? "Yeah, sure! No problem." We may or may not have jumped up and down a little when we hung up the phone. Yay!

We sent her a ton of pictures of different cakes we thought would go with our theme, and discussed this particular shade of yellow until the word "yellow" lost its meaning. Poor Michelle... we must have driven her crazy. But in true Michelle fashion, she just said "yeah we can do that, no problem". The day before the shoot Maggie went to pick up the cake at Michelle's Cakes in Indian Head, MD. When she arrived Michelle told her she had just whipped it up that morning, and it was ready to go home. Holy cow... she just "whipped it up", and in the a.m. no less. Out of the bakery's back room came the most beautiful cake we'd ever seen. The flower looked like it had to be real, but nope... it was all sugar. The ruffled icing was stunning, and it was hard to imagine ever cutting into such a beautiful piece of art. The cake was absolutley perfect for our theme, and it was truly the centerpiece of our table top.

Michelle's Cakes is the bakery to use for your wedding. Hands down, no debating it. So if a wedding is in your future, stop what you're doing, and call Michelle now. You'll thank us later.

Thank you Michelle, for so quickly agreeing to participate in our styled shoot, and for so effortlessly creating a masterpiece we could play with. We must have taken 100 shots of just the cake alone. Oh and if you're wondering what it taste like? Heaven.

Learn more about Michelle's Cakes here.

Thanks again Michelle!

Have a sweet day! (yeah we said it)

Vendor Spotlight :: Favia's Artistry

When we decided to do our first styled shoot, we knew the one thing we couldn't live without was a hair and make up artist to doll up our model. Only problem was, we didn't really know any.

We ran into Monique of Favia's Artistry at a local bridal show a few months ago. We were just passing through but Monique had her business on display. Her booth was packed, and we were impressed with the examples of her work. Right away we noticed she had the ability to make Brides look stunning, but seem as if they're not wearing any make up at all. We also saw that she could turn on the drama and play with colors, making her clients look and feel like they are on the set of a Vogue photo shoot. We knew we needed her business card, so we took one, and got in contact with her right away.

To our delight, she was willing to help us and agreed to make over our model for the shoot. We pored over hundreds of images of vintage hair styles and make up trends from the 40's. In total, we must have sent Monique over 30 examples of what we were looking for. She kindly put up with us, was always quick to respond, and was eager to talk about different ideas. We knew we were in good hands.

As it turns out, we were. In fact, we were in great hands. Monique arrived at Maggie's home the day of the shoot with her Mary Poppins bag of magic. She got started right away, and worked right up until it was time to start shooting. Like us, she's a perfectionist... it felt good knowing she was working towards getting it just right. And she sure did. I mean look at those Victory Rolls! Come on! They're amazing. She's amazing. We couldn't be happier with Monique's work, and the final result that came through in photos.

Favia's Artistry provides beauty, makeup, hair and style design for their clients ranging from Brides and wedding parties, to professional models. Southern Maryland Brides and even those in the Washington, DC should line up for consultations with Monique, and cross their fingers she's available on their wedding date. Knowing you look beautiful, and feeling confident goes a long way on your wedding day, especially in photos. Make sure you have someone as talented as Monique of Favia's Artistry in your corner.

Check out more of Monique's work here.

Here are some images of Monique at work, and of her final product.

The shot below is one of our favorites!

Hello beautiful...

Thanks again to Monique!

And thanks for reading...

Come away with me...

"Come away with me" he said... as he took her hand, dashing from the front porch of her parent's farm house towards the purring engine of their getaway car. "No, wait!" she whispered as she ran back inside, returning moments later wearing her mother's wedding veil, gloves and pearls, with a suitcase in hand.

On a warm spring evening, in no particular year during the 1940's, a boy and girl ran off to get married. With knotted twine for wedding bands, and suitcases packed for nowhere, their elopement may not have been real but it was theirs and it was perfect.

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We love wedding photography. We love everything about the unexpected, unplanned (ha!), unscripted course each wedding day takes. The majority of our wedding portfolio is journalistic in nature, as well it should be. So why then are the self proclaimed "photojournalists" doing a completely fake, perfectly arranged styled shoot? Because we're allowed to wear more than one hat.

As much as we love watching someone else's story unfold in front of our cameras, we love to create stories too. We're by no means writers, as you'll clearly find when reading this new blog of ours, but we had such a great time creating these characters, and developing our own little back story as inspiration for this shoot. Simply put... it was fun. And who doesn't like fun? In fact, we plan on doing many more of these editorial style shoots.

Before we show you the photos we want to thank the following individuals who helped make this possible. Without them we'd still only be talking about this little elopement story. We'll be featuring each vendor who supported this styled shoot as the week goes on. So please check back to learn more about these wonderful people.

Hair and Makeup: Favia's Artistry http://www.faviasartistry.com/#home
Florals: LV Creative Designs http://lvcreativedesigns.com/AboutUs.html
Vintage Car; 1949 Packard Sedan: Jack Osborne, Faulkner MD
Cake: Michelle's Cakes http://www.michellescakes.net/
Dress: Vintage 1946
Models: Amanda Shaw, John Mudd


And now... onto the photos.

Can you handle this car?

Cake and Flowers... our favorite things!

Until next time,