My Inspiration……

I just love all things vintage, and find the 1970's a really exciting era - I wanted to bring my own take on it mixing the hippy with the urban look to create a funky boho vibe, using bold forms and contrasting block colours. I wanted to create something unique with a clear boho festival vibe, drawing upon what is quintessentially 1970's, in styling, music and fashion and bringing in my love for macrame and original retro crockery.

Styling for the Bride & Groom……

I really wanted a romantic 70's urban boho look for the Bride and Groom. Combining a very feminine yet urban style that would draw upon the romantic arthurian and celtic style that resurged during the 1970's. Ultimately aiming for a edgy yet feminine look for the bride with flattering and sensual lines, and for the grooms outfit to compliment that.

I had worked with both Caroline Chamberlain and Samantha Crowther several times before and I knew that they would be able to create the look that I was aiming for. I shared my pinterest board with them to give them a clear idea of my vision and we bounced ideas around together.

Caroline's handmade bridal collection is very much inspired by vintage and decades gone by. Her bespoke design for this shoot of Culottes in a drape ivory satin with a Guipure lace top worked beautifully and complimented the Grooms tweed suit.

Samantha incorporated a variety of textures into the models beautiful auburn hair, including loose and tight curls with a mixture of braids, adding some height to give it more styled look for a contemporary bride. For the makeup, she used copper tones on the eyes, with bronze liner, and flutter lashes. She kept the makeup coverage natural and added some subtle faux freckles to create an ethereal look. I was absolutely delighted with the look that they both created for the shoot.

Venue Styling…..

I came up with the theme while listening to a Bobby Womack record, it inspired me to look back through my childhood photos. My parents were teenagers in the 1970's so I grew up surrounded by strong 1970s influences, music, clothes and interior design. I have a collection of original resources and I really enjoyed scouring through them to get ideas.

I'm passionate about event styling and all of the behind the scenes design work that goes into a wedding so I had lots of fun sourcing the original 1970's crockery, glassware and table linen. It was important to me to use as many original items as possible to give it an authentic feel and funky vibe. I loved bringing it all together the vibe, the designs and the colours.

I had a very clear idea about the floral design from the beginning, I wanted to create free-flowing organic forms using lots of lush greenery with Proteas, bamboo and pampas grass which I feel epitomises the 1970's for me. I like their structures and the sculptural forms that I can create with them.

Creating stationary that was both unique and funky was a must for this shoot. After experimenting with different greenery I opted to use fresh laurel leaves for the name place settings. I had fun creating the Seating plan, using the coloured thread to incorporate my colour theme.

Dawn created a mouthwatering semi naked cake, which I added a small fresh greenery arrangement to.

The frontage of The Lincoln hotel lended itself perfectly to the style of this shoot and incorporating a Tipi added a cool, funky and modern edge to the overall look.

Pampas grass wedding table styled by Ruby Adds

How it came together…..

I looked through my collection of vintage magazines, books and retro crockery for inspiration and ideas. Once I had laid my hands on some of my funky trios sets everything just came together naturally. The colour palette just had to be lush greens, burnt orange with shades of brown. I am always keen to get my creativity flowing and a styled shoot is the perfect opportunity to do this.

Once I had collated all of my resources I set about writing down a list of suppliers that I felt could meet the design brief, I wanted a group of talented, creative and vibrant professional to work alongside me. I arranged to meet up with Caroline, Samantha, Dawn, Kev and Jon, they were all really enthusiastic to be involved, and immediately got what I was looking for, something romantic, funky and cool. It was exciting discussing how it would all come together.

My Favourite Image and why……..

One of my favourite images from the shoot captures the sunlight streaming through the Tipi and hitting the top table. The sunlight lands on the table centrepiece, shines through the stems of pampas grass and bamboo onto the retro crockery and my eclectic collection of glassware beautifully. I was really excited to receive the images from Kev, they were just what I was looking for - fresh, light and vibrant. His is a very talented natural photographer, and real pleasure to work with.