A Modern Photo Shoot at the Loading Dock in Stamford, Connecticut
At the beginning of April I flew back into the US from Paris fired up about the incredible shoot I had collaborated on with Robert and Kathleen Trenske and Beth Chapman. I had a few days to switch out my luggage from cute Parisian clothes to long, flowy summer dresses as we geared up for our trip to Costa Rica! In between, we planned a Style Me Pretty Inspiration to Reality shoot. Yeah, I know– are we nuts or what?! In fact, we left the Style Me Pretty shoot and headed straight to the airport for Costa Rica!
I’m so excited to share this shoot with you, which was featured on Style Me Pretty in three separate posts which you can view here: part one, part two, and part three. It was an honor to put together this modern, sleek, minimal, citrus inspired shoot for our friends at Style Me Pretty. The caliber of shoots that they feature are incredible and we are so grateful to be among them! The inspiration board for our shoot was designed by Style Circle member Lena.
I love this board– mostly because it is such a departure from my own personal style. We all loved the minimal feel of the board, the citrus and bold colors. We took that as our main source of inspiration and set out to design a shoot with our incredible team! Speaking of, here are the talented and creative folks who made this shoot possible:
Photography: Carla Ten Eyck Photography
Flowers: Datura: A Modern Garden
Event Design: Jubilee Events
Event Planning: Jubilee Events with help from 14 Stories
Model Styling, Dresses and Accessories: The White Dress by the Shore
Reception Location: The Loading Dock
Hair & Makeup: Dana Bartone & Co.
Catering: Jordan Caterers
Cake & Confections: Ana Parzych
Invitations: Gus & Ruby Letterpress
Shoes: Zappos
Furniture Rentals: Taylor Creative Inc.
Ring Bowls, Place Cards, Ribbon, and Thank You Notes: Paloma’s Nest
Edible Champagne Flowers: Wild Hibiscus
Tableware, Glassware & Chargers: Party Rental Ltd.
Our color story ranged from bright white to orange, green, yellow, with hints of pink. We were inspired by the chandelier at The Loading Dock and integrated some of that sparkle in beautiful details and accessories– like the gorgeous jewelry and accessories from The White Dress by the Shore. Dana Bartone, inspired by the sleek makeup and styling of the model in our inspiration board, created a beautiful bun for our bride Kate. I love how her hair is so defined and slightly retro! The bouquet hanging in the chandelier and held by our bride, Linsdsay, was made of white miniature phaelonopsis orchids with lily grass.
Paloma’s Nest created wooden thank you cards for our couple that doubled as favors. They were tucked in glass line envelopes! Our bridesmaid, dressed in a lemon shantung frock from Chic by the Shore, carried a bouquet of trachelium, aspidistra and fresh cut limes , created by Datura: A Modern Garden.
I had SO much fun designing this tablescape along with Tony of Datura. It was a real challenge for me, personally, but I absolutely love the crisp and modern outcome! We used a ghost table from Taylor Creative Inc., as the basis of our design. Tony created a STUNNING centerpiece of curly willow branches known as “the cyclone” that grew out of the table and into the ceiling of The Loading Dock. It was accentuated with shades of orange clementines, blood oranges, and sweet valencia oranges. Tony wove in eucharis orchid’s into the tablescape for a touch of femininity and a pop of white. Each place setting had an orange glass charger with white frosted place settings. We submerged white frill tulips into the champagne glasses (one of my favorite details!) and also used them to top our clementine place card holders, which were created using wooden rings by Paloma’s Nest.
The paper suite was created by Gus & Ruby Letterpress. They decided on a clean, minimalist design that made use of the bright citrus color palate and hard, architectural lines of the industrial venue in white, orange, and grey with a hint of green. The paper suite was completely letterpress, including the cute citrus elements that we garnished our drink display with!
Tony of Datura created a citrus garland for our brides made of clementines, blood oranges and limes. The second bouquet, carried by Kate, was made of wedding belle daffodils with aspidistra. The menu cards on our table, also by Gus & Ruby were letterpress in orange ink and noted the delicious menu, as crafted by Jordan Caterers.
The ring bowl, an intrinsic part of the inspiration board was also by Paloma’s Nest. It was edged in gold and had our couple’s initials inscribed on the face. Our maid, Kelly, switched from a papaya colored jewel necklace by The White Dress by the Shore and into a custom designed necklace by Datura made of green hypericum berry, amber and minature phaelonopsis orchids.
The white leather couch was from the furniture collection at Taylor Creative, Inc. Ana Parzych created the White Tahitian Vanilla cake layered with Passion Fruit mousseline. It was finished in swiss meringue buttercream and vanilla fondant. Ana created fondant-molded pearls and hand-sculpted sugar lilies.
Jordan Caterers created a menu based on our inspiration board with sea infused menu items such as seared tuna, shrimp, scallops, lobster. They infused citrus in both color and flavor of the entrees and our cocktail bar, made up of key lime martini’s and passion fruit prosecco. We submerged edible wild hibiscus into some of our cocktails, too!
The AMAZING silver shoes with flower embellishment are from Zappos.com… our absolute FAVORITE website for shoes!
And a few behind-the-scenes images of our lovely and delightful photo shoot crew! Thanks to all for your creativity and hard work. It was such a pleasure collaborating with you!
xoxoxo
A purple, chocolate and gold invitation suite by Lilah Paper
I’m so excited to be able to share our invitations with you!! As many of you know, the first item I purchased for our wedding was my shoes. They’ve been my muse for the entire event and have guided me toward the most amazing gown, linens, and paper. When I set out to have our invitations designed I knew of only one designer who would be able to take my shoes and make an invitation out of them!
Paper is one of my loves, and Kalyn from Lilah Paper and I have worked together on several events and her style really compliments my own. We came up with a custom invitation suite based on a variety of different inspirational pieces that I sent her through out the process. When she sent me our first round of proofs I was blown away. It wasn’t something I had envisioned but it was exactly what I wanted — which is a true testament to her talent! Much like a proud mama, I happen to think I have the most beautiful wedding invitations ever made.
We started out with a pretty belly band holding all our paper goodness together.
Inside, a tri-fold invitation suite. It starts off with lyrics from our soon to be first dance song by Van Morrison…
Our actual letterpress invitation to the ceremony with double backing layers. Photographs cannot do it justice! It is so gorgeous!!
Our pretty letterpress enclosure cards. We’ve gotten so many compliments on the cute vintage inspired food selections. We’ve also received A LOT of interesting first dance songs!!
Our envelopes were hand written by the extremely talented Lisa Ridgely of Pen and Ink Calligraphy. I LOVE working with Lisa — she is SO good to my brides and it was so much fun to be one of hers! We chose this gorgeous red ink color for a fun pop.
I had so much fun working with Lilah Paper and absolutely love the couture suite she came up with for us. The quality was so important to me, and our invitations are above and beyond what we could have imagined. We were SO thrilled to mail them all out (except for the $.78 stamps on each one) and have gotten so many RSVP’s back. Its a joy every afternoon to run out to the mailbox!
I’ll have some prettier pro pictures after the wedding with the rest of our amazing paper!
