Our modern, clean and sophisticated shoot for Southern New England Weddings was so much fun to design. We don’t have anything like it in our portfolio and I had been dying to collaborate on something like this for a while. We were largely inspired by a clean color palette, unique and interesting textures (like metal and acrylic) and a gorgeous Givenchy/Riccardo Tisci dress in my search for inspiration for the story board. Belle Mer was the perfect place to shoot this editorial with it’s simplistic decor, white backdrops and as Carla mentioned in the behind-the-scenes video, amazing light!

As our shoot design progressed it sort of morphed into this obsession with taxidermy and a statement decor piece that we wanted to create. Between myself, Nichole of Coral Pheasant and the incredible Tony of Datura: A Modern Garden, we conceptualized this deer head escort card wall nearly 7 1/2 feet tall and completely covered in over 700 varieties of white and ivory roses (from the most wonderful rose grower, Passion Growers). Radic, right? To date, it is my absolute favorite thing we’ve EVER done at a photoshoot– and it almost didn’t happen! Believe it or not, white resin deer heads are hard to come by. After a fighting match with the folks at zgallerie who couldn’t express ship me my deer head in time (!) we scowered decor stores, online retailers, salvage stores… everything from this side of the Mississippi to procure a white resin deer head. We came up with nothing! Total failure. It was quite tragic… until… Tony came across a discarded taxidermy deer head form the day before our shoot with no ears or antlers. Score! And in true Datura: A Modern Garden fashion that deer head not only had the prettiest Styrofoam ears but also curly willow antlers and was painted a magnificent shade of white!

Some more incredible details from the shoot include the paper suite designed by Coral Pheasant, which included laser cut metal engraved invitations mounted to a python booklet. Whhaaat? Nichole also created laser engraved and hand painted gold / clear acrylic menu cards and escort cards, which was inspired by a decadent acrylic/ghost end table with exposed metal brackets found in elle decor. These are a MUST for us to reproduce at one of our events and is truly an incredible statement piece!

One thing I can’t get over is the insane centerpiece Tony and his team created using curly willow and hanging white curcumin suspended above one of our rentable vases. We used a luxurious linen from Wildflower Linens in a shimmering gold paillettes with gold “saturn” chargers at each place setting from Rentals Unlimited. Each place setting had a neatly folded white silk shantung napkin with an acrylic menu card with handmade paper garlands from Kristina Marie.

Beth Chapman of The White Dress by the shore was our talented fashion stylist and pulled together all the fashion and accessories for our model. She created three separate, modern looks using gowns from UK designer David Fielden, Amsale, and Coren Moore! And now the gorgeous images from the insanely creative Carla Ten Eyck… (be sure to read her blog post too!).

Thanks to such an incredible team for their love, laughs and creativity. We had so much fun on this warm July afternoon and can’t wait to do it again! Don’t forget to pick up your copy of Southern New England Weddings: Destinations to see all this goodness in print. Until next time… xo!

Credit Reel

Cinematography: Jim Altieri’s Vintage Cinema
Photography: Carla Ten Eyck Photography
Styling & Fashion: Beth Chapman, The White Dress by the Shore
Event Planning & Design: Candice Coppola, Jubilee Events
Floral Design + Decor: Tony Palmieri, Datura, A Modern Garden
Beauty: Dana Bartone & Co.
Cakes: Hope Wright-Martell, A Little Imagination Cakes
Invitations/Paper: Nichole Michel, Coral Pheasant
Rentals: Rentals Unlimited, Newport
Linens: Wildflower Linen
Paper Garlands: Kristina Marie