home on the web

Oh look, a blog! I forgot I had one! Well, not quite, but I have been rather busy since my last entry. I went to Tokyo, for one. That was fun. I think I’m homesick for it now. At some point I’ll get around to getting some photos from the trip online but since I spent half the holiday with the flu and drugged up to my eyeballs on seriously STRONG Japanese meds (pretty sure the stuff would be illegal over here) I didn’t take as many photos as I would have liked. Still, a Tokyo blog post needs to happen. Then there was Christmas, which was spent in Winchester followed by New Year, which was spent in Dornoch. Then, like, stuff happened and now it’s May; HOW? Joey has spent half of the year so far in Romania with his day job, with myself and the menagerie ensconced at my mums (she loved it) so I’ve been moving back and forth between our homes every two weeks since February, which probably explains the fuzzy feeling to the first part of 2019 for me. However, recently I’ve taken part in a few styled shoots, one of which is the reason I’m here to blow the dust off of this journal.

I’ve wanted to set up a styled shoot for a while now, so when the opportunity to have one in the stunning Newhall Estate came up, I was bouncing from the walls in excitement. I’ve shot a wedding at the estate previously but they’ve recently had a whole host of works done, so I was interested (nosey, really) about what they’ve been up to. Once we confirmed for an April shoot, I set about looking for the right suppliers to work with.

Because Newhall is light, bright and has gorgeous sprawling grounds (and because I have a lingering obsession with Lord of the Rings from my teens) my rough concept for the shoot was ‘fairy tale elf princess getting ready for her wedding’. Succinct, right? At least it was descriptive. At any rate, the suppliers involved knocked it out the park. With the delicate, glowy make up and an epic tumble of hair, our model Shannon looked every inch a mythical being. We put her in a stunning dress which had so many things going for it that it needs a list: intricate beading, flattering straps, a light champagne tint that was modern without being overtly so, and multiple layers of fabric that definitely said ‘princess’ without also saying ‘meringue’. Heaven. Added to this were some beautiful florals which had me crying into my lens cap, a stunning stationery suite (which I hope convinces any couples of mine that they do, in fact, NEED a stationery suite), a lovely set of bridal lingerie hand stitched here in the Borders, a few hairpieces which I AGONISED over when choosing which one we were to use, and handmade silk ribbons which I have selfishly hoarded ever since. To be honest, I don’t remember much from the shoot due to spending most of it struggling to see past my heart eyes. I’ll let the photos do the talking from here, but be sure to check out all of the amazing suppliers involved! As a bonus, we’re all women running our own businesses, which, well, is awesome.