When we saw this wedding shoot we just had to share it with you. A beautiful, eye-catching sunshine yellow and lime green theme, brought together by Stacey-Marie Chalk of Cherry Topped Bespoke Weddings and Juliet McKee of Juliet Mckee Photography. Stacey-Marie explains how the shoot came together…
“After working with Juliet McKee on another styled shoot for Janet Mohapi-Banks’ cake collection, Juliet contacted me to see if I was interested in working with her to coordinate and style a bridal inspiration shoot, so we got together to brainstorm ideas and colours. We wanted to do something bright and bold; sunflowers were one of the initial items to inspire us and Juliet had suggested the sunshine yellow too. I wanted to add an accent colour to the yellow, so as we were searching for inspiration we decided to have lime green join the mix! We wanted to achieve the fun of the Summer of Love and the elegance of Audrey. A whole range of things inspired us such as Craspedia, bows, sixties, fifties, hazy sunshine…
“Once the inspiration and colours were sorted for our shoot I thought of Pendell House for the setting, with its decor suiting the design perfectly. Pendell House is a beautiful mansion house set in the Surrey countryside, and is a relatively new venue to the wedding industry.
“When styling the breakfast table I wanted to show that you can really make such a difference to your wedding by hiring in alternative linen, crockery, cutlery and glassware. Jones Hire provided the perfect range of items, with lime green wine glasses, amber charger plates, dark handle cutlery to go with the dark wooden chairs and bright sunshine yellow napkins which I tied into bows.
“To add to the Summer of Love fun aspect of the shoot we wanted to have a sweetie buffet. Sarah from Creative Candi provided the vintage apothecary jars and sweets in colours to suit the design, for which Wendy of August Moon also provided some matching labels.
“Coordinating each supplier by letting them know the ideas, colours, style and design was important for consistency, and to ensure each element would complement each other on the day. With sunflowers as the starting point, Janet from Janet Mohapi-Banks sketched her cake design. Obtaining a sketch from Janet for the cake together with the inspiration board helped Wendy to create a couple of artistic stationery design options. Showing Steph from Fairy Nuff Flowers the images of the dresses, the stationery and the cake, together with some specific floral inspiration helped her select the flowers and design the most gorgeous bouquets.
“For the glasswear, Emma of Miss Bush Bridal Wear (who provided the dresses and accessories) suggested Nest, who had some beautiful glassware which we used for the outside lemon and lime aspect of the shoot.
“Gemma, our blonde model, wore this Ugo Zaldi dress from Miss Bush Bridal Wear, chosen as a short wedding gown alternative, great as a second dress for the evening or just simply if a full length dress isn’t your thing! With layers of chiffon it floats beautifully. We accessorised with a blusher veil to match the contemporary look.
“We chose a couple of dresses from Miss Bush Bridal Wear by LouLou which looked wonderful on Kitty, our dark haired model. They kindly lent us a couple of their 2012 collection which had never been seen before! The first dress is a silk organza dress with a high neck and deep V back with lace appliquéd waist (style LB29). We accessorised this dress with the duchess satin lime green bow and the matching Pink “Tease” shoes, dyed to the colour swatch.
“Juliet knew Helen from Polly Pootles and thought it would be fun to have ‘Polly’ the VW Beetle as a different dimension.
“We chose a couple of Jesus Peiro from Miss Bush Bridalwear dresses for their late 60’s look and feel. The first being style 2003, a sleek, elegant, scoop neck dress with pockets; perfect simplicity for accessorising with the oversized yellow Dupion Silk bow. Gemma’s hair was styled into a beehive with Craspedia, carnations and a bustle veil to create drama.
“Kitty’s second dress was a full duchess satin skirt, with beaded lace appliqué bodice, buttoned back and satin belt (LouLou, style LB33). We kept the accessories simple with a short satin edge veil and little diamante side hair bow.
“The second Jesus Peiro dress Gemma wore was style 1014, with its ¾ sleeves it is perfect for a winter wedding. To mirror the large bow at the drop waist of the dress, we accessorised with an ivory stain hair bow.
“The best bit with this shoot was the day itself! Seeing all your thoughts, research, hard work and ideas come together is just wonderful! The day wouldn’t be anywhere near as amazing if it wasn’t for the truly brilliant team. Working with people who love what they do and are professional as well as fun to work with makes all the difference!”
Photography: Juliet McKee Photography
Hair and Make-Up: Gemma Sutton
