Autumn Desert Wedding - Echo, UT

An Amazing Collaboration!

So, you may have noticed this summer that I've been a little MIA on the Insta/Facebook/Blogging social scene and it's because, well frankly, I have been a little quieter this summer. Partly because, dang, it's stressful worrying about managing those accounts, keeping your feed active, gaining followers, following the right people...it's gonna give me an ulcer. Also, partly because I've been taking some time to evaluate my life, family, business, goals, etc. and what path we're all headed on. I've needed some space and time for some soul-searching and prayer and it's hard to find that when one is 'plugged in' all the time. I haven't come to any firm conclusions yet, but I needed some time and space to look for direction. And lastly, it's partly because I've been working on a few small projects and have had to keep my lips sealed. And you guys know how much I love to chat, so I've pretty much been dying all summer! But, today is finally here and I finally get to share one of the projects that I've had so much fun collaborating on!

I teamed up with Ashley from Hawkeye Photography and a host of amazing vendors to bring you this gorgeous, deep summer, Northern Utah Desert Wedding Styled Shoot. For those who aren't familiar with the term, a styled shoot is where vendors all get together and stage a wedding and then photograph it for publication and inpsiration for future brides. I'm so thrilled that this shoot was picked up by Rocky Mountain Bride. They are such a fabulous wedding publication and I'm basically freaking out that we got to work with them. So, keep reading! We've got inspiration for flowers, cakes, tablescapes, invitations, hair, make-up, photography, videography, and wedding drone strikes. Oh yes, that's no autocorrect :) 

Flowers: Emily with The Pear Blossom
Photography: Ashley with Hawkeye Photography

First off, let me say that this location was such an inspiration for texture and color. Ashley and I had a blast scouting out these amazing red rocks in Echo, Utah. There may or may not have been some traipsing, a car graveyard, girl talk, and some crazed prairie dogs. Echo better just keep it to itself :) Sorry, horrible pun, but my husband LOVES all the puns and I  couldn't resist!

I knew I wanted the flowers to capture the natural colors and the raw intensity of these cliffs and grasses in the heat of the summer. We went with a sage, orange, peach, and bronze color palette and incorporated both cut and foraged flowers. One great thing about working on location is having access to the local plant life and using it in the arrangement, because I love the easy, natural feel it gives to the flowers.

I used Wright Flower Company in Springville, UT to source the orange stargazer lilies, king protea, scabiosa pods, chocolate tea roses, peach tulips, and seeded eucalyptus. I foraged around my own neighborhood for vines, the taupe fronds, and flowering orange perennials, and then foraged on-site to add in the sage brush. I loved working with some new-to-me flowers, mainly the scabiosa and protea, and some new color combos. Don't be afraid to push the envelope when it comes to colors at your wedding. While whites and pastels are always in style and a safe, classic bet, it may not suite your personality, the season you're getting married in, or the location.

For the bride: I put this bouquet together using my favorite European hand-tied technique, but kept it a loose rounded shape with spilling greens. I love how the bouquet seems to spill over in one lush, fragrant arrangement, but is grounded with a focal point of lilies and protea.

For the groom, I always like to make a teensy tiny version of what I did for the bride and I'm so happy with how the scabiosa pods turned out in the boutonniere. Also, can we digress for a second to the watch? No matter how many gadgets we get that tell time and replace wrist watches...phones, ipods, fitbits...a classy watch on a good-lookin' guy will always and forever be smokin' hot.

Cake and Cake Table: Emily with The Pear Blossom, Emily at Wildflower Weddings, and Seth with White Shanty

This was the teaser I posted on Instagram yesterday :) Couldn't help myself...I just had to get everyone drooling.

Summertime is all about sunshine, fruit, BBQ's, friends, and being outside and I wanted to create a cake that would reflect all that summery goodness, but still have a raw, desert feel to it (I almost typed "a raw, dessert feel". My subconcious slays me). After hours of recipe and design research, I finally brought together all my ideas into this semi-naked, rustic Peach Cobbler Cake.

This is truly the epitome of summer right here. We've got layers of shortcake dotted with fresh peaches and each layer is filled with caramel cream cheese frosting and cobbler crumbles. Yes, that's correct. Let me type it a little more slowly so your tastebuds can catch up with those flavors. Homemade buttermilk caramel...whipped into a cream cheese frosting...and homemade cobbler crumbles...all sandwiched between layers of peach studded shortcake. Seriously, it's like summer exploded in my mouth. That's just the bottom tier. The top tier is a delightful caramelized banana cake with caramel cream cheese frosting in between each layer. The whole cake was frosted with the caramel cream cheese frosting (a little bit less risky since it was a semi-naked cake, but still a little risky in summer heat) drizzled with a buttermilk caramel glaze, and then decorated with fresh peach slices and fresh flowers, and of course, crumble. Because CRUMBLE!

FYI: Don't forget to discuss the cake staging when working with your vendors. A few accents around a beautiful cake can turn it into a focal point of decor at your wedding or reception. I loved working with Seth and Emily to create this amazing cake table. Everything from the rustic-industrial farmhouse table to the prisms helped bring the entire look together. I love how the fresh peaches, prisms, runner, and greenery brought in the color palette and elegance, and how the cake stand and table brought in the raw, natural feel of the location.

Invitation Suite: Eliza Hall with Eliza Hall Calligraphy

Can we all just raise our hands right now and say how glad we are that calligraphy made a comeback? My mother learned calligraphy when I was a young girl and I always thought it was classy and timeless, but the new modern calligraphy makes me swoon - like a good old fashioned Regency England-esque swoon. I can't do calligraphy. I can barely sign my own signature. Which just makes me appreciate artists like Eliza all the more.

Eliza created this gorgeous peach, orange, and bronze wedding invitation suite on hand-made paper with peach and orange watercolors and bronze metallic accents. Then, she created such a stunning script for the entire suite and hand-lettered every piece in bronze metallic ink.

But, hands down, my favorite detail or these stamps. Vintage stamps in our color palette. All the heart eyes to you Eliza! Now I totally get it. In the real world, most of us (all except you 1%ers) can't afford to create each and every detail we imagine. So we have to pick and choose the ones that are the most important to us. When I was getting married...9 years ago on Thursday! Woot!...nobody had pushed the style on invitations like this and I needed about 800 invitations, so spending a ton of money on invitations seemed pointless. You better believe if modern calligraphy had been a thing back then, or if I had done a smaller, more intimate wedding, I would have been a little more inclined to show some love there.

Tablescape: Emily with The Pear Blossom, Seth with White Shanty, Emily with Wildflower Weddings and Events, Eliza with Eliza Hall Caligraphy, Diamond Rentals

Because of the cost of weddings, I have a love/hate relationship with tablescapes. Tables at your wedding dinner or reception are important to tie all the concepts together, but man they are usually where money just starts getting thrown out the window. When we started designing this tablescape, my two main goals were for it to not be too busy and cluttered (because HELLOOOOO we need room to envision food) and for it to be something that a bride could look at and actually see doing at her wedding (as opposed to two $400 chandelier floral installations for six place settings.) because these are the two most frequent mistakes I think brides make when they plan their tablescapes. Brides tend to underestimate how much centerpieces cost, so they go with a small, cheesy centerpiece and then add in rose petals, votives, a picture, tapers...aaaaand it's a cluttered disaster and anyone who sits at the table is moving all that junk out of the way. Honestly, by the time you purchase all those items for 10-15 tables, you could have done one fabulous garland or centerpiece at every table and had a crisp, clean, beautifully designed tablescape. I loved working with Emily, Seth, and Eliza because I feel like we were able to accomplish all of that and more. We tried to scale down from the cluttered tablescape that is so popular right now and just do a few things really well.

Seth with White Shanty provided us with this rustic-industrial farmhouse table. His tables are hand-crafted in the USA and he is so talented. His work is beyond compare, and his Instagram account is breathtaking. Emily and I loved this table as a background for the crisp white plates, peach runner, and taupe linens. Emily used bronze silverware from Diamond Rentals and crystal glassware to bring in just the right touch of elegance. It's the perfect blend of natural, raw, and class.

Each place was set with hand-lettered menus by Eliza that matched the invitation suite, and she also did up these beautiful placards for the bride and groom. Here comes the swoon...

Vintage sodas and peaches were the perfect food accent to the bronze dinnerware and greenery. Such a creative way to again pull on that color palette. And can we talk about that menu? I'm slaving away past lunchtime writing this and that food sounds divine.

We finished off the tablescape with a garland of seeded eucalyptus, sage brush, and vines that streamed down the table with accents of bronze prisms and flowers, and tapers in bronze holders. 

And then, I kid you not, we went to all that work and the videographer drone-striked the last half of the table by accident when her drone ran out of batteries during a fly-by for the styled wedding video footage. It was really, really, really ridiculously funny...after the initial screaming subsided.

Hair and Make-up Artist and Bride and Groom Fashions: Michelle with Make-up and Hair by Michelle, Dreams of Enchantment and Models: Davis Seaman and Chanelle Jepson

Davis and Chanelle were the perfect models for this shoot! All summery, bronzed skin, and romantic. Michelle with Make-up and Hair by Michelle really pulled together our vision of raw, natural elegance and style. I loved Chanelle's loose waves pulled back into an asymmetrical sweep. And the jeweled hair comb is a great alternative to a veil on a hot summer day. Also, Michelle made her make-up so natural and flawless. Her skin just glows and I love love the subtle contouring and eye-shadow. Also, I was so happy to see lip color that had a little sheen to it. I don't know about you guys, but I can't pull off matte lipstick to save my life and I'm pretty much living for the day when sheen makes a comeback. 

Dreams of Enchantment is a hidden gem of a bridal/prom boutique in Layton, UT. Chanelle's light bronze gown with cream lacy applique and subtle sage/aqua beading is gorgeous and very romantic. I still can't get over that perfect little train on the back. I think the style of the dress is so flattering on curves in all the right places :) Plus, the subtle sage/aqua beading pairs beautifully with Davis' classic navy suit. A great alternative for guys who aren't big on being stuffed into tuxes. What is it about a man in a suit?! 

Of course, this shoot would be nothing without such a talented photographer. Ashley with Hawkeye Photography had such a great vision from the get-go, and I loved collaborating with her to pull this all together. All of this gorgeous wedding inspiration and eye candy is only available because she is so talented. One of those tree falling in the forest things. If you do a wedding, but don't have any gorgeous pictures from that day, did it really happen? I can't stress enough how important it is to invest in a great wedding photographer. Especially to capture shots like this:

How gorgeous is this boudoir-inspired bridal image?!?! So many things I wish I would have thought to ask my photographer to do, but just didn't because I had no clue about wedding photography. But a shot like this would have been on the list. Just the right blend of sexy and romance, all while leaving a little to the imagination. I love it.

Where this was the first time I collaborated on a styled shoot there is one big thing I would have done differently. I totally neglected to bring milk to wash all that cake down. You better believe we cleaned up our shoot and then cut into that beauty because 1) it was a new flavor combo and I 'needed' feedback and 2) what am I supposed to do with all that cake? It was delicious, but I'm bringing milk next time and I sincerely apologize to all my new friends for that serious lapse in judgement :)

You may have noticed that all the vendors and links to their websites are listed all throughout this post, but here is a complete listing with all their links so that you can see more of their amazing work!

Photographer: Ashley with Hawkeye Photography
www.ashleyhawkesphotography.com
https://www.facebook.com/hawkeyephotography
Instagram- @hawkeyephotobyashley

Flowers and Cake: Emily with The Pear Blossom
www.thepearblossom.com
Instagram: @emily_pearblossom
​
Flower Wholesaler:
Chad - Wright Flower Company

HUMA- Michelle at Make-up and Hair by Michelle
Instagram @makeupandhairbymichelle

Bridal Dress: Dreams of Enchantment
50 N Main St
Layton, UT
(801) 444-3737
https://www.facebook.com/Dreams-Of-Enchantment-146163255408177/

Invitation Suite/Menu/Place Settings: Eliza Hall with Eliza Hall Calligraphy
Instagram: @elizahcalligraphy
https://www.instagram.com/elizahcalligraphy/
[email protected]

Table Scape: Emily with Wild Flower Weddings and Events
www.wildflowerweddingsandevents.net
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wildflowerweddingsandevents16/
Instagram: @wildflower_weddingsandevents

Table provided by: White Shanty 
Instagram- @whiteshantydesign 

Location: Echo, Utah
Models: Davis Seaman & Chanelle Jeppson
www.deliciousbychanelle.com

Enjoy!