This shoot was literally MONTHS in the making! My lovely sister Rachelle was married a few years back and due to a hectic wedding day, she didn’t get nearly enough portraits of herself alone in her dress, so a plan was hatched. Since she had yet to preserve her gown, we started planning a bridal shoot to show off an entirely different side of Rachelle! This is the first shoot that I had entire creative control (well despite the fact I wasn’t allowed to actually trash the dress) and everything was styled by yours truly! Not that I really had any idea what I was doing, or if everything would even come together to look halfway decent. I purchased both the birdcage vail and hair piece from etsy and with the help of hair and makeup, Rachelle’s 50’s inspired glam look was flawless! Arranging the schedules of myself, Rachelle and my AMAZING hair and makeup guru Katie is what made this shoot so hard to plan for, but alas we manage to pull all the pieces together!

The day finally came and despite the threat of rain, we thought heaven and earth had rearranged itself for perfect photographing weather…. turns out we were WRONG!! Within 10 mins of shooting, the water drops began to fall and I was in a panic! I had convinced myself that it wasn’t going to rain, so I was completely unprepared! Our plans quickly changed as I converted a trash bag to a camera cover and instead of heading up to Sliverado as our second location, we hung under the arches and openings of Chapman University.

With one polka dotted umbrella, a trash bag and after a very stern warning about trespassing by the railroads, we were able to get a TON of great photographs of Rachelle and even a silly video of the experience (more of that to come).

I even made the bouquet for this shoot, not too shabby for a photographer attempting floral design! ;)

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