Glamorous 1950s winter wedding inspiration shoot

I’m post­ing a 1950s wed­ding inspi­ra­tion shoot today for two rea­sons: one, the dresses and make up are so pretty — I couldn’t resist! two, I love hear­ing how cre­ative shoots like this come about. Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Carla Thomas got in touch and told me about her inspi­ra­tion for the shoot and how the idea grew to involve a great team of wed­ding sup­pli­ers and some fab­u­lous dresses and accessories.

I was going to call this blog post “one lucky man’s day out” but I thought that would be a bit naughty. I’d bet­ter hand over to Carla…

“We wanted the shoot to epit­o­mize the grandeur of the socialites of the 1950s — choos­ing to steer clear of the stereo­typ­i­cal milk­shake shop image of the era and instead bas­ing our shoot on the style of wed­ding that would have been attended by the rich and wealthy.

“I had posted a request on Twit­ter ask­ing if there were any make up artists and styl­ists inter­ested in col­lab­o­rat­ing for a pho­to­shoot I wanted to cre­ate. I had been search­ing for the per­fect sup­pli­ers for a bridal shoot and when Alex got in touch, I knew from the very first email exchange that we would be work­ing together. Since then, and it has only been just over 6 weeks!, Alex and I have not just pulled off a shoot that was even bet­ter than we could have expected, but we have also become good friends, cock­tail bud­dies and soon to be wed­ding fair partners!

What began as a ‘small shoot’ rapidly grew to one of epic pro­por­tions — with five amaz­ing mod­els and some of the most won­der­ful sup­pli­ers we could have asked for! From the out­set we decided on a ‘glam­orous 1950s win­ter wed­ding’ — to com­bine our love of 1950s fash­ion and the glam­our of a bygone era. We got in touch with lots of sup­pli­ers but a few stood out and were really help­ful in bring­ing our vision to life. Boards on Pin­ter­est were shared to help us col­lab­o­rate the hun­dreds of ideas we both had and inspired us to include a boudoir ses­sion in the shoot, a ser­vice that I also offer. From this we put together a ‘story’ to help our sup­pli­ers under­stand the look and feel we were aim­ing for.

Our first step was to involve the beau­ti­ful Hempel Hotel in Lon­don — the hotel is absolutely stun­ning with a min­i­mal­ist take on lux­ury — it pro­vided the per­fect back­drop to the gor­geous dresses and acces­sories we were using.

It was impor­tant to us that the look we cre­ated was achiev­able for the every­day bride on a bud­get and so table set­tings were crafted sim­ply and we stuck to state­ment pieces in the form of the dress, flow­ers and the cake — some­thing that would be eas­ily achieved. We had the mantra of ‘less is more’ and focused on the beau­ti­ful details of the shoot, using the sur­round­ings to cre­ate beau­ti­ful images.“

1950s win­ter wed­ding shoot — suppliers

• The Hempel Hotel — http://www.the-hempel.co.uk
• Pho­tog­ra­phy: Carla Thomas - http://carlathomasphoto.com
• sec­ond shoot­ing from Sarah of Aranya Pho­tog­ra­phy — http://www.aranyaphotography.co.uk/
• Wed­ding Coordinator/Stylist: Alex Peploe of Post­script Events — http://postscriptevents.co.uk/
• Hair: Yulia New­port —  http://www.bridalhairdesigner.com/
• Make-Up: http://heydayhoney.com/
• Jew­ellery and Acces­sories: Flo & Percy — http://www.floandpercy.com/
• and Glitzy Secrets — http://www.glitzysecrets.com/
• Bridal Lin­gerie: Gilda & Pearl — http://www.gildapearl.co.uk/
• Flow­ers: Mary Jane Vaughan — http://www.maryjanevaughan.co.uk/
• Wed­ding Cake: Restora­tion Cake — http://www.restorationcake.co.uk/
• Wed­ding Dresses: Look Dar­ling — http://www.lookdarling.com/
• Ian Stu­art — http://www.ianstuart-bride.com/
• Kit­tie & Dul­cie — http://www.kittyanddulcie.com/
• Groom’s Suits: Hugh Har­ris — http://www.hughharris.co.uk/
• Wed­ding Sta­tionery: White Knot — http://www.whiteknot.co.uk/

There’s even more on the Fifties Wed­ding blog — so if you’re plan­ning a 1950s wed­ding the details, dresses, lin­gerie and much more infor­ma­tion are shown here: http://fiftieswedding.com/a-50s-inspiration-shoot-focussed-on-elegance-and-glamour/