Whilst having an impromptu coffee at the local farm shop, come pub, come bistro, The Racehorse Catworth, my florist friend Becky and I noticed one heck of a stunning milk churn. Not just any milk churn but a vintage copper milk churn sitting innocently and unobtrusively as part of the décor of the venue.
After speaking to the owner, we discovered that the churn was a much beloved family heirloom and had been passed down through generations. This only fuelled our interest! All the while, Becky, owner of Florae Foray, was visualising the churn filled with flowers and of hanging chandeliers fashioned from foliage from the gorgeous wooden beams overhead.
Following further enquiry, we discovered that this venue regularly holds weddings, so together, we hatched a plan to organise a wedding styled shoot, all around this milk churn! Having compared diaries, we realised that our busy schedules meant that we had less than 24hours to turn this vision into a reality! Gordon kindly gave us permission to shoot at the venue and the following day we were returned with flowers, cameras, a hula-hoop, two models, a vintage wedding dress and a hair stylist and we were away!
What we love most about this blog post, is what can happen as a result of passion! When two heads are better than one and a plan comes together, all in the name of creativity! For anyone out there who has started his or her own creative business, it can turn out to be a isolated existence so getting together with someone with a similar style to you can be priceless. For me as the photographer, I felt utterly privileged to see the floral creations unfold with Becky. We met back in 2012 when she designed a floral bouquet for an autumn wedding styled shoot and I have not yet seen a more impressive floral designer. She is a true artist and I just adore working with her, its magic.
What I adore about this shoot is the boho look, thanks to Bespoke wedding hairstyling by KateAtalay who used flowers to add to the boho plait, Rosie pulled it off so well! Helen from Sweetness and Delight wedding cakes allowed us to feature her beautiful crisp white three tier wedding cake with lace detailing.
Thanks to shooting in the gorgeous Cambridgeshire countryside, I was able to play upon the mottled light, which adds a real delicate to the images of the bride.
As a wedding photographer, my mission is to be the silent story teller by capturing all of the precious moments what you were too excited to take in, to capture in time, all of those little details that you spent hours choosing. As you can see from the images below, it is important to me that the place settings are recorded, the twine used around the napkin, that stuff was important to you, so it is important to me!
The moral of this story has two points:
1) For the bride – go to your wedding venue, slowly absorb the details and record what it is that you are drawn to. Tell you team. Your florist will be able to pick a scheme in line with these special pieces and you photographer will be sure to capture them.
2) For the creative – get together with other creative who’s work appeals to you, you just never know what can happen when you give yourself 24hours notice!
About the flowers: Becky of Florae Foray
My mind never stops, whether driving past hedgerows on the look out for ivy trails or Queen Annes Lace to be foraged to finding weird and wonderful objects which would lend themselves as the perfect container. I met with Sarah on a lovely sunny afternoon after a usually busy morning with my lovely but lively 4 year old in tow. I’d never been to The Racehorse but I have to say it was a pleasant and relaxing venue and I was particularly captivated by the copper milk churn they had on display.
I’ve been after some vintage milk churns myself to use in place of urns and pedestals for more rustic venues but I have never seen one in copper and I fell instantly in lust with it, especially knowing metallics are looking to be an ongoing trend for 2016. So we hatched a plan to organise a photoshoot for the very next day. A mission and a half (I personally think our lattes may have been laced!) I have to say that if I had had time to order flowers for the shoot in advance it is likely that I would have chosen a beautiful deep purple delphinium and hydrangea with which to fill the churn but we arrived at the wholesalers early the following day at their mercy as to what was ready available from stock…. So white it was!
Sarah actually picked out the peony which became the main focus of the bouquet and then it was a simple task of selecting flowers and foliage to compliment the bloom including the most beautiful in colour and texture Lupins, Astrantia, a tiny Companula, Clematis, nigella and Pistache foliage, to this I added garden roses, herbs and ferns from my own garden and I couldn’t resist picking up some beautiful ribbons and a strawberry plant so as to add the unripe berries into the mix….
I managed to get the Delphiniumns and Hydrangea arranged into the churn (we could have done with a bigger budget as I would have loved to double the amount of flowers) make up a bridal bouquet and a bridesmaid posy (for my daughter/ model, as ever in tow!) a round posy for the table which was in turn framed by the ring of flowers (fashioned on a childs hula hoop base!) hung low above the styled table. As Sarah got snapping I worked a few minutes ahead!
All this before dashing off to my daughters karate class! It was a hectic but lovely experience, I think we both learnt lessons to take forward but above all it cemented our belief that it’s great to have the support of someone you respect in their field who believes in you and vice versa, if you can achieve what we did in such a limited time and budget just think of the possibilities!
