I love nothing more than a big, fancy white wedding. The dress, the veil the 3 tier wedding cake. I am a fan all things wedding. I LOVE all weddings. But what happens if you’re not a fan? If you can’t see yourself in the white lace dress, flowing train with a veil blowing in the wind. What if an alternative wedding dress is more your style?
Well, you just do you. It’s that simple. You ditch the traditions (some are so outdated anyway they should probably be scrapped) and have a day that makes you feel happy and confident. You plan a day that aligns with who you are as people. More and more couples are leaning towards a wedding that they want, rather than what they are told they should have. So an alternative wedding dress isn’t that big of a deal. I had a dusty pink one, not that bold, but it was what I wanted. It was me.
Traditional expectations
With this in mind, I got talking about the alternative bride to be, with Rachel Bray at Kiss and Make up. We talked about the women who felt unrepresented when flicking through traditional white wedding magazines. The brides to be that don’t see themselves looking back from the glossy traditional magazines. The brides that don’t feel comfy with traditional expectations and want something more. So we hatched a plan to find suppliers. Ones that were willing to showcase their skills in a shoot that would represent the alternative bride to be.
When creatives minds get together it can be a thing of beauty. It can also be a real challenge. There is a tendency to say things like “Ooh let’s do this”, “what about doing this” and “I’ve had a crazy idea”. After a brief discussion our ideas had escalated into a production worthy of a west end stage. But, before we booked the all singing, all dancing cast of the Lion King to our alternative wedding dress shoot, we managed to come up with a slightly more grounded idea. Lets just show a Bride that doesn’t want to wear white. Nothing fancy. No big staged production. Something achievable without blowing a massive amount of money.
Goodbye white wedding dress, hello black wedding dress!
To scale back our shoot, into something more manageable, we decided to ditch one thing that we thought could be seen as outdated for the modern women. The white dress, along with its representations of purity and innocence. Now don’t get me wrong, I love a white wedding dress and so many of my brides look absolutely stunning in their dress. But for this shoot specifically, we wanted to play with the idea of ditching it. So we did. We didn’t want to have a dress that unattainable price wise so we looked around and found our alternative wedding dress at Goddiva.
Our dream team of suppliers were assembled. Set the brief as “alternative bride to be with a hint of gothic”. It made sense to us. Make up artist Rachel Bray was in her element. She created 2 amazing looks on our model, one of which was a black lipstick. Never thought we would be doing this for a bridal shoot but it worked. Not only did it work, it looked absolutely gorgeous.
Kerry Huskisson from Halo Hair Designz created an hair style that was perfect for the headdresses that were on loan from Jess at Bombini Studio. Teamed with a stunning black wedding dress from Goddiva and black accessories, we were ready to cause some chaos in the woods. Well to be honest, we didn’t exactly raise hell, but we did look like we could, and that got us a few strange looks from passing dog walkers.
Alternative inspiration
All we wanted to do was showcase something for the alternative bride . I think we succeeded in doing this. As humans we are all born unique (and naked of course) and our uniqueness needs to be celebrated not covered in a blanket of white just because that what tradition dictates. If a traditional wedding is where your heart lies, then you have a whole world of inspiration available. If not, you now have a little bit of alternative wedding dress inspiration to get excited about.
Fast forward to today. Our shoot has been featured in Rock and Roll Bride Magazine and I continue to get messages of love and support over the images we created. If you would like to see another less traditional wedding shoot, take a look at this blog that ass also used in Rock and Roll Bride Magazine https://www.sarahcarterphotography.co.uk/wedding-inspiration-alternative-biker-themed-styled-shoot/
Suppliers
Dress
Rachel Bray at Kiss and make up https://www.kissandmakeupbyrachelbray.co.uk/
Kerry at Halo Hair Design https://www.halohairdesignz.co.uk/
Stephanies Florist https://www.stephaniesflorist-bourne.co.uk/
Floral Head Dresses are from https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/BombiniStudio
To see this images from this shoot in print you can purchase a copy here https://www.rocknrollbride.com/shop/?item=RNRMAG_0041
and photography as always is little old me x