All gowns by Vikki Lafford. Samara wearing Tiararama's Stephanie tiara and Sadie bracelet.
It is funny how certain events and meetings lead to great things and never was this truer than when I was approached to design a tiara for Sarah Williams' December 2008 wedding. It was quite auspicious anyway as she was getting married on my birthday and lives in God's own county of Gloucestershire (I know I live in London now but I'm still a West Country girl at heart). But what was fantastic about this wedding was that it had so much character and so much scope for creativity. And one look at the designs for Sarah's dress showed that it wasn't just me that was being creative. Sarah's soon to be sister in law, Vikki had designed her dress which incorporated a beautiful corset from Angels Carrying Savage Weapons. The dress was so beautifully embellished with hand dyed and crafted floral motifs and leaves that it created wonderful textures and colour combinations. And upon seeing this two thoughts struck me. Firstly "WOW" and secondly "I can see those flowers in my designs". And from that moment, sprung a very useful collaboration.
Quite early on we had discussed the possibility of doing a photoshoot together. Sarah is also a very keen photographer and has done many of Vikki's shots for her website and offered to do the photography for this shoot (we were also assisted by Vikki's boyfriend - another keen photographer) and Sunday May 31st 2009 saw the first of hopefully many more photoshoots to come.
We decided to do this first shoot in Oxfordshire/Gloucestershire as the Cotwolds at this time of year provides a beautiful backdrop. You have the meadows, the rivers, the quaint Cotswold stone buildings and fabulous old architecture. Absolutely ideal for romantic and picturesque summer weddings.
We really couldn't have asked for better weather either. Even at 8am when we left London we could see it would be a fab day! Upon arriving at Sarah's house (our base of operations for the day) we met our models for the day (although we had picked Samita up - an upcoming RnB artist - on our way) we met our other models Samara and Sarah's friend Clair who we managed to persuade to dress up for us too! After a much needed brew we went scouting for locations.
Having looked around for a while we came across Kelmscott Village Hall. The building itself was a typical Cotswold brick building and initially didn't look that interesting. But on closer inspection there were fabulous wooden doors, interesting windows and a great run down Cotswold Stone wall, some cute nooks and crannies as well as a lovely grass meadow behind. It was certainly the kind of one stop location that could yield some great things. We also decided to use the ruins at Minster Lovell which provided an incredible backdrop with wonderful textures and colours.
It was an incredibly successful day with some fabulous shots taken. I would like to thank Sarah and John for taking some great pictures, Vikki for the fabulous dresses, the models, Samara, Samita and Clair and of course Kevin for giving up his Sunday to traipse round the countryside with models! (no I didn't hear him complain either!).
I will be blogging the official shots for you to nose at as soon as we have decided on them (I know it's taken ages for us to decide but......). But in the meantime here are some of the unofficial shots taken by Kevin (& one I took!) of the day.
At Kelmscott Village Hall (and surrounds)
Samita wearing Tiararama's Un Fiore with Icicle Drop crystal choker and Rosa corsage cuff
Well a photographer can't ask a model to get into awkward positions if they're not prepared to do the same can they?
Samara is wearing our Double Maria headband
Minster Lovell Ruins
The lovely ladies (and Kevin!)
Samara wearing Tiararama's Jadis and Marietta bracelet
Samita wearing Tiararama's Liberty
Clair wearing Sarah's bridal gown which was designed by Vikki, the corset by Angels Carrying Savage Weapons and the bridal tiara by Tiararama.
And here are pictures of all of our pieces used in the shoot close up.
Jadis
Un Fiore
Double Maria
Stephanie
Sarah's Tiara
Liberty
Marietta
Sadie
Rosa Cuff
Icicle drop chokerSome websites for you to nose at:
Vikki Lafford's site Liliia
Sarah's new photography site Assassynation
For fabulous corsets Angels Carrying Savage Weapons
To listen to Samita's work click here
