Fly Away With Me Editorial Photoshoot

After the success of Pretty Poppies (published on Green Wedding Shoes and Dancing With Them), and the formal creation of Vibrant Visions Co by me & my partner Kayla, we immediately began dreaming about what would come next. Planned largely on a flight to Greenville in late April, Fly Away With Me became the project to tackle next, a content day focusing on vibrant colors and editorial portraits.

As always, our team absolutely crushed the assignment. Amy from Amy Scripts created a ton of different pieces for our kite inspired flat lay station, including a dried floral resin dish and three separate invitation suites. We also commissioned some hand thrown ring dishes from Sam Hunt Creative. Our florals came courtesy of Ali from Alt Charm Floral, who not only created floral pocket squares and arrangements, but also a colorful head piece inspired by bird of paradise flowers. Brittney (B. Evans Hair) and Tanesha (Tanesha Williams Beauty) created three unique looks for our models: one natural and glowy, one peachy and romantic, and one edgy and funky. Partridge & Co also lended us rentals like a green velvet chair, white arch, and black draping.

Our sponsor and venue, Prism, was the perfect place to host. With a blank slate, we were able to set up each vignette independent of each other with neutral walls and floors. Aside from planning and styling with Vibrant Visions Co, I was also able to photograph the event!

A large piles of colorful props intended to create a wedding flat lay sits on a wooden floor

Colorful props are lined up for wedding flat lays; Kayla, one half of Vibrant Visions Co, smiles at the camera while bring silly with blue fabric draped over her face

Tanesha Williams applies makeup to model

Brittney Evans curls the hair of a white, blonde model who already has her makeup done; a photographer arranges a wedding invitation suite and rings

A photographer holds her camera up to her face in the foreground to shoot the two male models in the background

Creative Director Kayla ensures the floral hair piece for a model stays in place

A model poses with her BBQ Lays chips, matching her outfit; a man in a teal suit models a floral headband, acting like the Chiquita banana girl

We had six separate vignettes for our editorial photoshoot, Fly Away With Me. Read more about each one and see the photos below!

MONARCH

The original vision: A dark skinned femme model with big, natural hair and glowy skin. Blue backdrop, orange monarch butterflies in her hair.

What went well: Te'Auna, our model, was absolutely stunning! As a burlesque performer, she even changed into one of her show outfits at the end for a few photos. The butterflies were pretty easy to work with, and lash glue kept them where we needed them.

What we could improve: I totally forgot to ask our models to remove their nail polish ahead of time. I think this simple change would complete the sleek and dreamy look.

The final product:

On a blue background, a Black model wears a black bandeau top and lifts her arms with orange monarch butterflies in her curly hair

On a blue background, a Black model closes her eyes and wears a black bandeau top with orange monarch butterflies in her curly hair

On a blue background, a Black model wears a black bandeau top and laughs with orange monarch butterflies in her curly hair, and one butterfly on her finger

On a blue background, a Black model wears a black bandeau top and lifts her arms with orange monarch butterflies in her curly hair; burlesque outfit

COTTON CANDY CLOUDS:

The original vision: Images taken from a ladder, shooting down. A light haired femme model laying on the floor on a sunset-y backdrop acting as the sky, with big fluffy clouds around her. Pink glowy makeup and white chunky heels. Very Lover-esque.

What went well: Our model, Olivia, brought the smize, y'all! I absolutely loved how her hair, makeup, and wardrobe came together. We also had a lot of props to play around with, including pink cellophane for our photogs to use in front of their lenses to create a funky, dreamy effect.

What we could improve: The shooting-from-above thing wasn't really the focus as I thought it'd be, which isn't necessarily bad, but worth mentioning. We worked for so long on those clouds, but I wish we'd had a little more time to make them even fluffier.

The final product:

A white, blonde model lays on a blue background, her curled hair fluffed underneath her. There is pink cellophane in front of the lens, creating a dreamy iridescent effect

A white, blonde model in a fluffy beige dress sits on a stool on a blue background, surrounding by fake clouds

White legs and feet in chunky white heels with a pink cellophane lens effect

White legs and feet in chunky white heels on a blue background with a pink cellophane lens effect

A white, blonde femme model in a fluffy beige dress sits in front of a blue background, showing off her pink makeup and iridescent star dangling earrings

BIRD OF PARADISE

The original vision: This vignette actually started as something completely different. We planned to do something we titled "Honey & Sunshine," where we imagined a pregnant dark skinned model in bright shades of yellow as a maternity shoot, incorporating bees in somehow, like with a dessert table. We thought it would be super cool to find a non-binary or trans model, but that obviously proved difficult. A couple weeks before the shoot, we scratched that idea and came up with Bird of Paradise instead, an editorial portrait using bold colors, a floral head piece, and layers of different colored fabric.

What went well: Our model, Morgan, blew us away. Someone get her a modeling contract, asap. During setup, this vignette just looked like a backdrop stand with fabric hanging from it... pretty lackluster. We're so happy that our attendees understood our vision, playing around with depth and movement. We had a lot of clothing options to try, but ultimately decided on this golden feathered romper, which worked well.

What we could improve: In an ideal world, if we had another backdrop stand I would have loved to play more with layering the fabric with space in between for a more 3-D effect. Otherwise, I think we crushed it!

The final product:

A white woman with straight auburn hair parts two pieces of multi-colored fabric. She is wearing a goldenrod feathered romper and a large floral head piece

A white woman with straight auburn hair peeks out from a sheer piece of orange fabric; extends her arms underneath tulle

A white woman with straight auburn hair poses layered in blue and orange fabric, wearing a goldenrod feathered romper and multi-colored floral headpiece

PEACOCK LOVE

The original vision: A masc/masc wedding portrait scene with jewel tones and varying levels.

What went well: Two months before our shoot, Kayla and I filmed a wedding for Brian and Jay, whose suits were exactly what we imagined our models in for Peacock Love. When our original models went MIA, we knew exactly who to call. We loved the floral pocket squares (anything to avoid a regular boutonniere, am I right?) and the rentals allowed us to add some variety.

What we could improve: This was seemingly the simplest of our vignettes, and I do wish we'd had another element to it. When planning an editorial day, we knew we wanted to have some content for our wedding friends, so this was our nod to that. I think it would have been nice to add an officiant or some sort of ceremony element.

The final product:

Two men, one in a teal suit and one in a navy suit, model with floral pocket squares

A white man holds onto the black lapel of his navy suit and smiles at the camera

A South African man holds onto the black lapel of his teal suit and smiles at the camera

Two men smile and embrace each other, one in a teal suit and one in a navy suit, on a black background

A man in a teal suit sits in a wicker peacock chair and leans down to embrace another man on the floor, who is wearing a navy suit. A multi-colored purple floral arrangement sits on the floor next to them

UP & AWAY FLAT LAYS

The original vision: Kite-shaped/themed wedding flay lay suite with lots of accessories to play with, like shoes, jewelry, ribbons, etc. Bright colors that coincided with VVCo's branding colors.

What went well: After a last minute drop out of our original stationery artist, Amy hopped on board and just freaking crushed it. I was so blown away when she sent some sneak peeks of all the stuff she was working on. We had three separate invitations suites, including an acrylic kite-shaped invite and little folded kites with ribbons attached to the bottom. Freaking gorg. We also gathered lots of details to play with, including handmade ring dishes, tons of chiffon ribbon, vintage stamps, and colored/pearled sunglasses.

What we could improve: The only thing I can think of is the analysis paralysis. When we laid out all the details, we were like, "Did we give them too many options?" Ha! Better too much than not enough.

The final product:

Colorful kite inspired wedding invitation flat lay with pink shoes, custom red heart sunglasses, and vintage stamps

Colorful kite inspired wedding invitation flat lay with pearl covered sunglasses, hand thrown ring dish, purple ribbon, and a pink ring box

Colorful kite inspired wedding invitation flat lay with acrylic invitation and custom orange heart sunglasses

Colorful purple kite inspired wedding invitation flat lay with custom red heart sunglasses, and vintage stamps

Colorful kite inspired peach fuzz purple wedding invitation flat lay with pink shoes, pearl-covered sunglasses, and purple ribbon

JETSETTER

The original vision: An escort display made of classic paper planes with pastel colors, but on textured paper to look more elevated and less like elementary school.

What went well / What we could improve: Listen. There apparently has to be one flop every time we create a shoot, and this was it. After working for hours the week before the shoot to figure out how we were going to make it work, the consensus was that we had to scrap our original ideas and come up with something else on the day of the shoot. We couldn't string the planes vertically like we originally imagined because we were unable to anchor them enough that they wouldn't just spin around. We also didn't think about the fact that we planned for the display to be on a white background, which meant the white text on vellum paper was basically unreadable. To problem solve, we had everyone shoot the escort display last, using one of our blue backdrops as a last resort. And though Amy had given us other plain, non-vellum, colored planes to use as accents, we couldn't find a way to make them look good with the new set up. All that being said, the floral piece on the white arch turned out beautiful!

The final product: