Hey gals! I promised you guys a long time ago that I would go over how I styled me and Dalton's recent couple shoot and I never did get around to it! Well, I finally have and I am going to break it all down for you and tell you guys exactly how I came up with everything that I did. I am going to include a bunch of pics from our shoot because I am still obessessing over them! I will also share the photographer that we used at the end of this post beacuse she's amazing too! So let's jump right in! Pre-Warning this post has a lot of pics in it, but I couldn't just choose 3 or 4 to share, so sorrrrry.
Figure out your focus for the shoot...
The first thing that I focused on for this shoot is that I wanted it to look fall, but I wanted to stay with pastel colors. I chose pastel colors because that is what looked the best with both of our skin tones! Dalton has a lighter skin tone than I do and looks the best in light neutral colors and my hair goes well with pale pink and white colors.
Begin to plan the basics of your outfits...
I knew that I wanted a simple outfit, this was just a shoot for me and Dalton and I didn't want it to look like an engagement shoot because it wasn't! I wanted it casual and comfy and to resemble us.
I decided to do a chunky sweater and jeans and to have Dalton wear a pullover over a button down. It's important to first figure out what you want both of you to be wearing, what looks good on both of you. Don't worry about colors yet, that part comes next. While you're considering what you want to wear, think about the location that you are going to be taking your pictures at. This may require talking to your photographer beforehand to make sure that what you choose is going to look good for the location! This may sound crazy, but I promise when you see your photos after you are going to be thankful for all of the thought you put into what you would be wearing.
When deciding what you will be wearing you obviously have to consider the season, well to an extent. I knew that I wanted to wear a big chunky sweater, but it was November in New Orleans and I knew that it wouldn't be that cold, but I had to make it look like it was! So we sucked it up in the heat and went with the sweaters and we wound up loving it.
We wanted something casual, which made it easier to coordinate our outfits together. A nice pair of jeans and a pair of booties won't steer you wrong. It's a classic look that will look good for years to come and hopefully 20 years from now you'll think what you wore still looked good. Unlike our parents do when they see pictures of themselves from the 80's
Time for colors...
Once you've figured out the pieces that both of you will be wearing for the shoot you can start to think about colors! This is when you come back to thinking about the location that you will be shooting in. If you're going to be taking pictures in a wooded area you don't want to be wearing brown and dark colors because you may blend into your background. You may want brighter dark colorers so that the colors will pop off of the wooded area behind you.
For our shoot I knew that we were going to be shooting in City Park in New Orleans. There is a lot of green, greys, and flowers around so I wanted light and neutral colors so that it would pop in the picture.
While you're figuring out what colors you want to do you should also consider what colors look good on you and your skintone. For instance, I like the way that pale pink looks with my skin tone and my light hair, so I knew that I wanted a chunky pale pink sweater.
Once you figure out your colors, it's important to figure out what your partner is going to wear. You want the colors to compliment each other and to also compliment the colors of the enviornment that you will be shooting in. Since I was going to be wearing pale pink I began to think of colors that would look good next to each other and also what would look good on Dalton. I knew I wanted to mix tan, white, and a dark wash jean on him.
Once you've figured your colors out it's time to put the outfits together.
Bring the outfit together...
For me, I knew I was going to be wearing a chunky sweater that was going to be the focal point of the outfit, so I wanted my bottoms to be more neutral to tone down the sweater a little. I decided on a dark wash pair of jeans with a brown belt I found on Amazon to tie with everything. I knew I needed a light color shoe and I knew that a bootie would look best. I paired the outfit with a pair of booties that I had bought a few months previous for a concert that were a light tan with silver buckles that wound up working perfectly together.
For Dalton, I orignally wanted him to wear a white button down, but I wound up deciding that I wanted him to have a little more than that. So we found a tan v-neck pullover from Polo that worked perfectly with the button down. I decided to get him to match with my jeans and for him to wear a dark wash pair of jeans as well. He threw on a pair of boots that he liked and he was ready to go.
As you can see, Miller was also a part of this photoshoot. I won't lie, I kind of based our colors slightly off of Miller's dark chocolate coat. I wanted her to look like she belonged in the shoot so I went to a local craft store and found a pink ribbon that would match my sweater. I cut it long enough to make into a bow to tie around her neck and it worked great and she looked super cute. Scroll down to see the pics of Miller!
Our Photographer...
I couldn't write this whole long post without telling you guys about our photographer. I found her through Instagram and when I saw her Instagram feed I fell in love! The colors, the pictures, everything was gorgeous and was exactly what I was looking for. I looked through a couple of different photographers Instagrams and websites until I found the right one for me. So don't be discouraged if it takes a little time to find exactly what you want!
Like I said I found Lauren of LC Photography and contacted her to set up our shoot. I talked to her over the course of a few weeks to discuss what I wanted out of the shoot and where I was thinking about shooting. She was super flexible and super nice. I felt like I got to know her a little before we went for the shoot and it made me a lot less nervous the day of.
Fast forward to the day of the shoot and that's when we met Lauren, she's super bubbly and adorable and super sweet. She made the whole experience of us taking pictures so fun and so comfortable for both us! She also was so nice and paitent in working with Miller, a 4 month old lab puppy doesn't really like to sit still, but she was so nice about it! We had such a fun time shooting with her and running around City Park.
My favorite part though was when we finally got to see all of the pictures a few weeks later. I knew her pictures were gorgeous but I was blown away by what she did. Her pictures were everything that I wanted and more. She was amazing y'all! I highly reccommend working with her, she's a sweetheart and she talkes amazing pics! I will leave you the link to her website right HERE so that you can check her out! If you want to check out her beautiful Instagram you can also do that right HERE.
I hope that this post helps you guys in styling your future shoot whether it's just a couples shoot like this one, or an engagement shoot. I tried to break it down into my thought process and I hope that helped! I'll see y'all on Monday with a post on the cutest tee's for Mardi Gras!
xoxo,
