A Fun 50’s Colourful Photoshoot in the Essex Countryside
This styled photoshoot in Essex combines the classic beauty of the 1950’s with some modern fun and colourful touches and has lots of elements that your couples can take inspiration from to recrate for their celebrations.
For example, simply choosing 2 key colours to run throughout your day can help pull a theme together without everything having to sit neatly in that theme.
We mixed modern and vintage elements by having everything in a pink and blue colour palette. Our wig is styled in a classic Hollywood vintage wave but having the blue colour it gives the style a modern edge.
The Wedding Cake
The wedding cake has a clean classic and simple design giving a more modern rather than true 1950s look but because we stayed with the pink and blue with fresh flowers that match the bouquet it all ties in nicely together.
By bringing in fabulous local suppliers of Arrow vintage Cars, Scent Florists and Vintage Candy Floss we were able to have a true vintage element in our pink colour palette, keeping the look fun and bright.
Finally, by using The Humble Photography company, of husband and wife team Tom and Rebecca, we captured our gorgeous real couple in candid moments, plus by using their vintage camera we got that extra special vintage aesthetic for the black and white images.
The Models
Our model couple is a real couple that has been together for over 10 years, and I think this shows as you can see how in love they are and how comfortable with each other they are. Verity, our bride, is our current runner-up in our ‘Face of Le Keux’ 2022 competition. We always prefer to work with our Keuxties (Le Keux Customers) to build confidence and self-love within our community.
More about the Theme
I wanted to put together a fun colourful shoot bringing elements of the 1950s and complimenting them against modern elements for an alternative look that’s achievable for a modern couple. I also wanted to showcase our flair for wig styling, proving that modern bright and fun colours look fabulous in vintage styles such as Hollywood Waves.
The Location: Downham Hall in the Essex Countryside
I chose Downham Hall as the backdrop as it was highly recommended by the vintage car company we worked with and wanted to keep to all suppliers involved in the shoot being independent businesses.
Christina, one of the owners at Downham Hall was a pleasure to organize everything with and I would defiantly work with her again. Downham Hall is set in the Essex Countryside in Chelmsford and has the benefit of having not only a classic manor building but newer sections have been added such as the Orangery, giving perfect lighting for beautiful indoor shots as well as gorgeous gardens and a tree swing!
The Suppliers
Most of the suppliers used for this shoot I have worked with closely before on real weddings and shoots and knew they are reliable and would understand my vision.
Simon at Arrow Vintage Cars supplied our wedding car when My Husband and I got married 11 years ago. Richard and Davey at Scent Florists have provided Christmas Wreath Making classes and Flower Crown Making classes at the salon and we have worked on over 5 shoots together now.
David at Vintage Candy Floss has previously stocked his candyfloss at milkshake Bar so we know it is absolutely delicious! Michelle who provided the wedding cake is one of our stylists, she has many talents as not only assists us with hair and makeup but also has her own wedding cake business.
Verity our Bridal model is 2022’s Face of Le Keux runner up and part of her prize is to be featured in our marketing. We were delighted when her Husband Ryan agreed to take part so we could have a real couple in our images and love that they represent our customer base as having amazing tattoos, a unique style of their own and love mixing vintage and modern styles.
My hope in using Verity and Ryan is for others to relate to our vision and realize they can achieve a beautiful vintage aesthetic for their own wedding too, and that it is not unattainable to achieve this look.
And last but by no means least was our fabulous Husband and Wife team, Tom and Rebecca, The Humble Photography Co, who I meet at a real wedding and loved their work ethic and photography style so much we knew they would capture our vision for this shoot perfectly. Tom also had a fabulous surprise for us on the day as brought a vintage film camera to capture some black and white stills of the day.
Planning the Photoshoot in the Essex Countryside
My name is Anna, owner of Le Keux Vintage Salon & Parties in Essex. I knew I wanted to work with Arrow Vintage Cars and use their beautiful pink Cadillac so the shoot was initially designed around the car.
I chose the colours, keeping it to pastel pink and blue, which are also the Le Keux brand colours, from there everything came together perfectly. Wanting to showcase our vintage wig styling I ordered a beautiful blue wig which took a couple of days to steam set, brush out and style in a classic Hollywood Wave pattern.
I then contacted the other suppliers that I knew would understand and love to be involved in a 50s concept that had a modern colour injection to bring the fun. The schedule was finalised a couple of weeks before the shoot, and with the schedule was a moodboard so everyone could see what final look I was aiming for.
I wanted to wrap the shoot by 2.30 so that suppliers with children could get back for the school run so I worked backward from this with a list of images I wanted and the time it would take to style the bride and groom, this was then sent out to all involved so that everyone knew what to expect on the day.
Advice
My advice to other suppliers planning a styled shoot would be to know the vision you want to create and communicate this clearly with all suppliers involved. Even if something happens that means you have to adjust the schedule if you all know what needs to be achieved to can make adjustments easily. For example, we had lots of breaks in weather during this shoot but because everyone knew what was needed, we could stop and go and do the inside shots when it started raining, then get back out for the outdoor images in the Cadillac and on the Garden swing.
Want to see some more styled shoots? Check out this page for more.