I have this mindset. It's a weird one and it may sound bad, but it's kind of helped me a lot mentally.
The thing I hate the most is getting let down or for things to not work out. So, I tend to approach things with the mentality that, even if I put a lot of work and energy into this there is always a chance it won't work out. So basically I expect the worst. NOW, a lot of the time it does work out and obviously exceeds my expectations, but there are times where it doesn't and because of my skeptical mind I find that I'm not let down and it's easier for me to take a deep breath and say "well, you tried and there is always next time!" I can shake things off way easier.
This was luckily not one of those "shake it off" moments.
Though I originally had big hopes for this shoot when I first started to organize it in January, I was not let down. I made contact with a lot of people, and where there were gaps in the creative process I made adjustments and scratched a few things to focus on what I knew was actually going to work out. I thought to myself "ok. Styled bridal shoots can be a big deal and I have no clue how big I want this to be."
Usually for these shoots you have a model, a photographer, a dress, and hair stylsit, an MUA, a florist, maybe even an event co'ordinator or decorators or calligraphers or bakers or a special venue?? I still have no idea so I could be missing other vendors.
Well, I had a model, a hairstylist, and a dress. And we made it WORK!
The two girls that came to help me bring this shoot to life were awesome. Whitney did wonderfully on the hair and Kendra was amazing as my bride for the afternoon! I had a dress I found on Facebook marketplace and I decorated one of my wicker chairs for a "bridal throne" kind of look with a matching bouquet of green and white. I made the flowers myself (SHOCKING I know) and even did the makeup. The whole time I as taking the photos I was thinking "man I'm really not in the game right now what's wrong with me?"
That was until I actually saw the photos and had them uploaded and started to edit them. I sighed with relief because I loved them, I was so excited about them I finished them within a 24 hour time period! Usually when I get excited like that I sit on them for a day then go back over them to make sure I wasn't missing anything or rushing the process. I always feel guilty for some reason when a gallery doesn't take me a week to finish, but really it's because I spend a lot of consecutive hours on the photos instead of spreading my work time over multiple days. I binged this gallery like the whole girl community binged Love is Blind on Netflix. I barely even waited to post photos on Instagram I was just too excited!
I loved working with the girls that day and am sooooooo happy with how this turned out! I'm already imagining how amazing the next one will be with even more people involved next time!
So, without further delay, here is the gallery that us 3 girls pulled together to create!
Hair by: Whitney at Expose Salon, Nanaimo - @wavesbywhit
Model: Kendra Howell - @kendraclamar
Hair, Makeup, Florals : @breukerscreative @taylorbee18