The Backyard Wedding Retreat

The Backyard Wedding Retreat

I don't often do retreats in Kentucky, but when I do I beg my best friends to let me use their backyard as a backdrop. I also beg my other friends to model for me, and because my sets locally are more elaborate- begged my attendees to help with preparations (only if they wanted to of course). It was honestly so much fun getting to work next to the other girls while putting everything together. We had a great time talking and getting to know one another even more before we started photographing Ayna and Saifu. It was also incredibly satisfying knowing that we did all of the work ourselves.

The theme for the shoot was "Practical Magic". Ayna and I went up to a friend bridal shop to pick a dress and landed on this beautiful gown that Gillian definitely would have worn. I also purchased the wooden backdrops from a previous wedding of mine so we could put babies breath all over them, and set up elaborate mini tables with food and witchy attributes. The real theme of the day was "more and more babies breath" because I had literally been buying it for months and drying it out in my kitchen.

Dress Designer: Eva Lendel | Models: Ayna (a wonderful photographer) and her husband Saifu | Attendees: Casie, Miranda, Caitlin, and Olivia (yes my Olivia that shoots with me)