The Inspiration
This past September, the Femina Ladies traveled to France. It all started with a vision: to create a fashion-centric wedding shoot in one of the most romantic wedding locations in Europe: Paris. As mentioned in a previous post, the inspiration behind the trip was of course our love of travel combined with our love for romantic European locations. As wedding photographers who are commissioned for a select number of destination weddings per year, creating a unique look for our Paris Destination Wedding shoot was key.
First we found the dress. To beat the normal crowds within the city, we knew our shoot time would need to begin early in the morning (ie: 6:00am), and we wanted a gown to complement the soft hues of the early morning summer skies. Via Instagram, we discovered the fabulously talented Leanne Marshall, winner of “Project Runway”. We loved her designs, and kept scrolling. So when we spotted the appropriately named “Raincloud” dress with the softest hues of blue, we knew we had a winner! However, combined with the timing of NYC’s Fashion Week, and the fact that our shoot was international, it wasn’t easy to nail “Raincloud” down. But thankfully the lovely ladies of Lovely, LA overnighted her to us in NYC! (Huge thanks to these ladies for helping us achieve this vision!)
Discovering “Raincloud” helped spearhead the rest of this particular shoot’s vision, and shortly after we began brainstorming florals and invitation designs and techniques we’d like to use. Noelle located some incredible silk ribbons from Illume Silk for the florals, and Nicole began designing wedding stationery designs. Playing off the hand-painted technique used in creating the “Raincloud” dress, she created custom-designed watercolor letterpress invitations with the help from our always amazing team of printers at Laura Marr Printing.
Happy Coincidences
Like with most concepts, we turned to Pinterest to create a vision board. Noelle worked meticulously to put together a cohesive vision to begin sending to potential vendors. Through more scrolling on the ‘gram, and some networking, we found the perfect group of partners to help execute the remaining pieces of our vision. The enormously talented Aude, owner of Aude Rose, created the most beautiful bouquet utilizing everything we had hoped for… including the spiky Blue Sea Holly we had snapped a picture of at a local Parisian floral shop! While the majority of the design decisions were brainstormed prior to our travel, most if not all of the execution was actually put together after landing in Paris just days before our shoot. We spent our days sightseeing, shopping for details, and scouting locations, and our nights doing what we do best: sipping delicious wine in the 2nd Arrondissement.
During our shopping adventures, we sourced some delicious treats from Ladurée, local perfume from Rose Desgranges (a historic perfumeria with an exquisite vintage fragrance), and the happiest of coincidences: ivory, satin wrapped Louboutins with the perfect shade of blue.
Shooting with “Raincloud”
After four jam-packed days of planning, prep, and wine, it was time for the shoot! With an early call time of 4:00am, our models arrived to begin “glam”. So much of a shoot’s vision comes down to the finished “look”, and we were in great hands with one of the premier Parisian artists, and new friend, Onorina from Onorina Beauty. Coffee in hand, she worked to prep, paint and primp our beautiful models, Alicia Devoucoux and Shana Sabeg Lupi. (Click here to view our shoot with Shana!)
Now, not-so-ironically, after four beautifully sunny days in Paris, the forecast changed literally overnight. When we woke up the morning of our shoot, our eyes stayed glued to weather.com’s hourly predictions of rain. Luckily as seasoned wedding photographers, we can jive with any kind of weather, but this was a big bummer for sure. Once our ladies were “glam ready”, we headed out to Location #1: The Lourve and the Sulley Pavillion. Working quickly, knowing the weather could change at any moment, we photographed Alicia in “Raincloud”, knowing these were going to be the very things rolling in overhead. Keeping an eye on time (and our gear!) our amazing photo assistant Kika Sacre, kept us updated with when we should move onto Location #2: Trocadero Plaza. After a crazy stint of zero cell service, Kika and Alicia hailed us a cab and off we were to shoot at the Eiffel Tower with cotton-candy skies. (To view some behind-the-scenes, click here!)
Post-Shoot Shoot
And then it came… raindrops. But thanks to Kika, Alicia and “Raincloud” stayed dry under the shelter of our over-sized reflector! The Feminas and Kika on the other hand, not so much haha! Nevertheless, while our day didn’t go quite as planned logistically, we still had more to do… so we headed back to our Airbnb for our post-shoot boudoir shoot.
In addition to our vision of a romantic destination wedding shoot, we also wanted to take full advantage of our lucky Airbnb find with a Parisian Boudoir Shoot. So in true Femina-style, we packed in two afternoon boudoir shoots after our early morning wedding shoots. Through our searches for local lingerie boutiques, Noelle found The Lace Atelier, and we fell in love with their aesthetic. Owners, Christy + Helene, were gracious to allow us to borrow some delicate pieces and combined with some other details items (like the vintage mirror and drop earrings) from Noelle’s recent destination wedding, and the oversized Parisian windows of our Airbnb, we had all we needed!
View More!
To see more, visit our other recent Paris shoot with Shana! We love how we were able to get two completely different looks from the same location all because of some no-so-lucky rain! And of course, follow us on Instagram for more sneak peeks from recent weddings and shoots :)
