The Only Thing in the World Lovelier Than a Rainbow?

Today’s Eng­lish Wed­ding Blog fea­ture is all about love and rain­bows. Lovely Laura from Per­fect Choice Plan­ning got in touch to share this amaz­ing inspi­ra­tion shoot with me and I was hooked instantly. The images are divine, it fea­tures one of my favorite wed­ding indus­try friends Beth from Cakes by Beth, and the brides in the shoot are a real life cou­ple -  their images have an exquis­ite tingly qual­ity you’ll love!

Photo credit www.emmabphotography.com

Laura tells us more about the shoot: “The theme is ele­gant, mod­ern, eclec­tic with a sub­tle rain­bow theme run­ning through­out it, and it fea­tures same-sex cou­ples. This is some­thing that myself and my very good pho­tog­ra­pher friend Emma B Pho­tog­ra­phy had been think­ing about doing since before Christ­mas but when the same-sex mar­riage law started going through Par­lia­ment, we thought it would be the per­fect time to do this shoot.

Image credit www.jayphotographicimages.com

Image credit www.jayphotographicimages.com

“The sup­pli­ers involved in the day were amaz­ing and I’m so pleased at the out­come, I think you’ll love it too. The female mod­els involved were actu­ally a real-life cou­ple which made them such a plea­sure to shoot on the day.”

Rain­bow wed­ding inspi­ra­tion shoot at Mit­ton Hall — Per­fect Choice Planning

Photo credit www.emmabphotography.com

Photo credit www.emmabphotography.com

Photo credit www.emmabphotography.com

Photo credit www.emmabphotography.com

Photo credit www.emmabphotography.com

Photo credit www.emmabphotography.com

Photo credit www.emmabphotography.com

Photo credit www.emmabphotography.com

Photo credit www.emmabphotography.com

Photo credit www.emmabphotography.com

Photo credit www.emmabphotography.com

Photo credit www.emmabphotography.com

The story behind the inspi­ra­tion shoot

Plan­ning a pho­to­shoot is just like plan­ning a wed­ding or any other event; there is a time limit to con­tact and con­firm all your sup­pli­ers, there is the main theme (or not) to think about and style, rela­tion­ships to build, emails to send, and the result that takes place on the day is just as excit­ing. Pho­to­shoots are a great way for indus­try sup­pli­ers to net­work, gain new con­tacts and work together to cre­ate amaz­ing images for pro­mo­tion, and I’m always on the look out for excit­ing shoot ideas to bring to life!

Emma from Emma B Pho­tog­ra­phy and I had the idea for this pho­to­shoot for a while, but it only took about 6 weeks to bring together. We both wanted to style a shoot that focuses on same-sex cou­ples in a widely unex­plored indus­try mar­ket and when the gay mar­riage law started being dis­cussed in Par­lia­ment, we thought this is the time to do it.

Image credit www.jayphotographicimages.com

Image credit www.jayphotographicimages.com

Image credit www.jayphotographicimages.com

A rain­bow theme with fash­ion styling

The aim of the shoot was to cre­ate a beau­ti­ful and visu­ally stun­ning styled shoot sur­round­ing a male and a female same-sex cou­ple with a rain­bow color scheme run­ning through that wasn’t inva­sive or over the top. We didn’t want it to be seen as tacky or stereo­typ­i­cal, but to do some­thing that all brides and grooms could look at and love for the whole style. It was decided that the color scheme would reflect the rain­bow flag asso­ci­ated with the gay com­mu­nity, with a high fash­ion but attain­able styling concept.

Pho­tog­ra­phy credit www.emmabphotography.com

Pho­tog­ra­phy credit www.emmabphotography.com

Pho­tog­ra­phy credit www.emmabphotography.com

Pho­tog­ra­phy credit www.emmabphotography.com

Pho­tog­ra­phy credit www.emmabphotography.com

Pho­tog­ra­phy credit www.emmabphotography.com

Pho­tog­ra­phy credit www.emmabphotography.com

Emma says: “The idea of this shoot first came about over tea and cake when Laura and I got together for a brain­storm­ing ses­sion. We agreed that nei­ther of us had seen a shoot based around civil part­ner­ships and same sex mar­riage, and that it would be fun to try it out, par­tic­u­larly with the recent devel­op­ments in mar­riage laws. We wanted to keep the style of the shoot quite under­stated and chic whilst still hav­ing a fun edge… with­out being a big tacky cheese-fest! After that orig­i­nal dis­cus­sion which sparked the idea we then set up a Pin­ter­est board to col­lect inspi­ra­tion, and from there onwards Laura worked so hard pulling together all the ideas and sourc­ing suppliers.”

Pho­tog­ra­phy credit www.jayphotographicimages.com

Pho­tog­ra­phy credit www.jayphotographicimages.com

Pho­tog­ra­phy credit www.jayphotographicimages.com

Cre­ative wed­ding sup­pli­ers to check out

And so the organ­is­ing began. To date, I have to say I think this is my favorite shoot that I have organ­ised and the results are incred­i­ble! Emma B is an out­stand­ing pho­tog­ra­pher who always takes the most beau­ti­ful images that you imme­di­ately fall in love with. I also have the plea­sure of hav­ing her as a great friend out­side of the indus­try, and can per­son­ally vouch what a friendly and lovely per­son she is! There was a worry that she wouldn’t make it on the day as she was poorly, how­ever, she appeared and lasted all day – trooper!

Jonty from JAY Pho­to­graphic Images came to the shoot quite late – we were email­ing about the arrange­ments late on the evening before but I’m so glad that he was avail­able, mak­ing a per­fect addi­tion like the last puz­zle piece. As you can see for your­self, Jonty brings the beauty and skill of a very tal­ented pho­tog­ra­pher, not to men­tion gad­gets, giz­mos and some inno­v­a­tive tech­niques with reflection!

The day started out with sun­shine, how­ever it wasn’t long before the threat­en­ing clouds made an appear­ance and opened above us. We had done a good por­tion of exte­rior shots and, for­tu­nately the venue has so many fan­tas­tic areas inside that we had too much to choose from! It was also an added bonus that there was a car rally with vin­tage and clas­sic cars, which we used to our advan­tage in some out­door shots! The sun even reap­peared for the final part of the day.

Our hair and make-up artist for the day was the ever-talented Nita from Silk Make Up. Nita has the abil­ity to know exactly what you want and used her own cre­ativ­ity to expand on my ideas for the shoot. From her work­ing on one of my pre­vi­ous pho­to­shoots I knew that she would deliver and she did just that; a fan­tas­tic job, bring­ing to life every­thing I had envis­aged for the day, and then more.

The gor­geous dresses, suits, head­pieces and jew­ellery were sup­plied by Gill & Georgina from Dream­catcher Bridal in Kirkham, who were won­der­ful to work with and so accom­mo­dat­ing at every point. The stun­ning dresses fit the ele­gant, eclec­tic and high-fashion style that we wanted for the shoot, part­nered with the beau­ti­ful acces­sories. Our male cou­ple also wore styl­ish and top qual­ity suits from Dream­catcher with colour­ful cra­vats to set off the rain­bow color scheme.

The impres­sive cake was cre­ated by Cakes By Beth. A super-talented, artis­tic baker and a fab­u­lous per­son to boot, this impres­sive fea­ture cake high­lighted the rain­bow color scheme and added to the ele­gant styling behind the shoot. With muted rain­bow icing flow­ers set off by the white ruffed back­ground, this cake cer­tainly got a lot of atten­tion at the venue through­out the day!

Rain­bow wed­ding ideas for you to cut out and keep!

In addi­tion to the eye-catching cake, I wanted to show how real brides can keep a color scheme run­ning through their wed­ding with­out break­ing the bank. For this I added brightly coloured sweets such as rain­bow drops, dolly mix­ture, fizzy rib­bons and snow­ball but­tons to wine glasses and cock­tail glasses. These would be great if used for table cen­tres, dec­o­ra­tion or even favours and place set­tings – and you’ll be able to enjoy eat­ing them after­wards as we did!

The visu­ally stun­ning bou­quets and but­ton­holes were cre­ated by Mat from Red Flo­ral Archi­tec­ture. I think a com­ment from one of the mod­els really sums up his work: “You can see why he is a flo­ral archi­tect – these are just incred­i­ble pieces of work!” The designs cre­ated by Red Flo­ral never dis­ap­point and always have peo­ple star­ing in awe at such mag­nif­i­cent cre­ations, which suited the shoot perfectly.

The unique umbrel­las were sup­plied by Love Umbrel­las. Not only are these a great fea­ture for any wed­ding, they are extremely afford­able and water­proof too – per­fect for the unpre­dictable British weather! I am a proud Love Umbrel­las owner and have attracted many looks and com­ments of awe and intrigue wher­ever I go.

Of course, our amaz­ing venue for the day was Mit­ton Hall Hotel near Clitheroe. Hav­ing worked at one of its sis­ter venues, Eaves Hall, I didn’t think I would ever love a venue more and yet when I walked through the entrance into Mit­ton Hall, it just took my breath away. The feel­ing of grandeur and style is impos­si­ble to escape and the venue has every­thing to offer; fan­tas­tic food, com­fort­able accom­mo­da­tion, avant garde bar area, spa­cious func­tion room, gor­geous con­ser­va­tory, out­stand­ing grounds – I could go on! If you are read­ing this and you haven’t yet booked your venue then I urge you to seek out Mit­ton Hall and see if it’s your per­fect venue.

Emma says: “The shoot went amaz­ingly well! All of the sup­pli­ers worked very hard to cre­ate a hugely suc­cess­ful day. They were pro­fes­sional, friendly and extremely tal­ented. Mit­ton Hall were the per­fect host, pro­vid­ing us with refresh­ments and let­ting us roam around their beau­ti­ful venue all day, totally undis­turbed. And our mod­els did a fan­tas­tic job of both being posed and also inter­act­ing nat­u­rally. I’m so pleased with my images from the day… lots of beau­ti­ful moments, and the sun even made an appear­ance too! I’ve also had a peek at Jonty’s shots and they are amaz­ing! It was great to work with him as always and I think our images com­pli­ment each other well.

Laura from Per­fect Choice Plan­ning did a fan­tas­tic job of organ­is­ing every­thing… from scout­ing venues, book­ing mod­els and sup­pli­ers, plan­ning dress fit­tings, right down to the last rain­bow drop and party ring. She is a plea­sure to work with and is def­i­nitely one of the most organ­ised peo­ple I know!”

Finally I would like to thank our won­der­ful mod­els of the day; Peter, Ben and real-life cou­ple, Vicky and Gemma. You could see how ner­vous they all were on the day but once they’d relaxed and let the nerves drain away, became nat­u­rals in front of the cam­era. They lis­tened per­fectly to what Emma, Jonty and I all asked of them and did a bril­liant job. Addi­tion­ally, I want to thank my friend Mark (who has also mod­elled for me pre­vi­ously so knew how the day went) and my OH, Matt for being excel­lent help­ing hands on the day.

Organ­i­sa­tion, styling & shoes: Per­fect Choice Plan­ning
Venue: Mit­ton Hall Hotel
Pho­tog­ra­phers: Emma B Pho­tog­ra­phy and JAY Pho­to­graphic Images
Hair & MUA: Silk Make-Up
Dresses, Suits & Acces­sories: Dream­catcher Bridal
Bou­quets & But­ton­holes: Red Flo­ral Archi­tec­ture
Large cake: Cakes By Beth
Umbrel­las: Love Umbrel­las

On the day help: Matt and Mark
Model: Gemma, Vicky, Peter and Ben.

And the only thing in the world love­lier than a rainbow?

… is falling in love with the same per­son over and over again every sin­gle day when you wake up. Best feel­ing in the world

Claire x