We have been so dang excited to share this shoot with you all!! Our modern, minimal take on Fall has been a hard secret to keep. But we are finally sharing! In fact, we’ll do you one even better and take you behind the scenes of the entire shoot. This one is pretty special to us, because we decided to repurpose our own florals from the previous day’s wedding. It required us to stay later during clean up post-wedding, carefully maintain each and every stem we could, transport them between multiple locations, and, oh, did we mention it was pouring down rain the entire day too?! Yeah, you can imagine we went significantly out of our way to repurpose these beauties, but boy, was it worth every second. Just take a look for yourself to see how these flowers, which would normally be thrown in the trash, still had a lot of beauty left to give…
THE BACKGROUND + INSPIRATION
Floristry is such a unique craft. Hours of work go into creating these beautiful, living pieces of art. But that’s exactly the irony of it—the fact that it lives, means its beauty cannot last forever. Wedding flowers can feel like such a momentary, fleeting beauty, to be enjoyed by others for a mere few hours. Then, comes the inevitable question that people always ask us, “what do you do with these flowers after the event?” The inevitable answer is painful: they get trashed.
That has always killed us. We see waste so often, especially in the wedding industry, and unfortunately we contribute to it. We felt called to make a change. Inspired by the ever talented NYC based florist Lewis Miller Design’s Flower Flashes, we felt such a strong call to reduce our waste and create something beautiful in the process. As florists, we believe sustainability and our imprint on the planet are things that should weigh heavily on us.
So when we had a wedding at the Brooklyn Grange (which we designed the florals for) and a styled shoot booked the next day, we decided to work a little harder to break down the wedding’s large-frame floral installations and salvage as many stems as we could.
And so, the florals for our styled shoot were re-born, you could say. We repurposed these pieces to create a new bridal bouquet and other arrangements. Our theme was a modern, minimal take on the moodiness of fall. Stark contrasts. Clean lines. The bride and groom in a monochromatic scheme, with more minimal hints of fall colors surrounding them. We opted for lighter, peachier roses, maroon dahlias, and mustard football mums as the main florals and colors, surrounded by tons of texture brought to life in the acacia, boxwood, and amaranthus.
OUR TEAM
The Brooklyn studio we shot in (Studio 59BK) was a perfect fit for our theme: minimalist, clean lines, and tons of windows for natural light. Our photographers, Evergreen Weddings, were exceptional too! They captured our vision perfectly and were a dream to work alongside with. Couples—don’t sleep on this husband and wife wedding photography duo. They are the real deal.
THE BOUQUET
For the bride and groom’s florals, again, we kept it monochromatic—mostly shades of whites and greens. Minimalist. Clean lines. But, as always texture here was the key. From the eye-catching roses, to the softest, tiniest greenery, this bouquet was full of range and dimension. All repurposed from the wedding the day before.
THE TABLESCAPE
Our tablescape was designed with the same feel in mind. Simple and clean, yet warm and textured. We laid black velvet as a tablecloth to produce some warm dimension. We created mustard colored napkins out of leftover fabric and designed place cards using marble coasters. Lastly, we added heirloom golden crystal glasses and black taper candles in vintage brass candle holders, both of which further added to the setting’s moodiness.
THE INVITATION SUITE
We designed this invitation in line with the theme: simple, monochromatic, clean lines, with that pop of moodiness coming from the black envelope. Designing invitations is low-key one of our favorite things. It’s that perfect “where Type A meets Creative” type of task—which is kiiiiind of our thing. You have to have some level of creativity to envision it in the first place, and then have a killer attention to detail to make 500 minute adjustments along the way to get it just perfect. And that hand-written gold calligraphy against the back envelope… Swooooon City. It’s the perfect classic look with a hint of moody mystique. It’ll never go out of style.
After everything was said and done, we’re so glad we repurposed these flowers. Giving them a new life, even for a little, felt so right. Their beauty might be fleeting, but they still had more to give. In fact—we bet that if we didn’t mention it, you might have never even guessed that these flowers were “recycled”. (Who knew reduce, re-use, and recyle could be so elegant—dare we say, even kinda sexy!?) We are so dang stoked about how this shoot turned out, and we’re hopeful that small choices like this, when possible, can bring a much needed wave of sustainability and waste reduction in the floral industry.
CREDITS //
Design, Floristry, Calligraphy, Invitation Design: Willow & Wine
Photography: Evergreen Weddings
Studio: Studio 59BK
Models: Jade DaSilva + Rafael DaSilva
Dress: from Lovely Bride NYC
Suit: Custom Alexander Nash Suit