While we were gone in mid-January for our annual belated Christmas travels to our immediate families out West (Arizona & California- the only time in the YEAR that we visit our families at their homes), Wedding Day Magazine shared the Styled Shoot that we fully photographed for them 6 months ago at the end of August.
Backstory of the Magazine Styled Shoot
For the shoot day that they chose on Tuesday August 27th, 2019, Jason had just gotten back from wedding things in San Diego, California (right after Jenny got back from our first niece’s Baby Shower near Los Angeles, California), so we drove hours straight from O’Hare airport in Chicago to home, got a few hours of sleep for the night, then went straight an hour to Goshen in the morning to capture the Wedding Day Magazine Wedding Styled Shoot! In all the day was 10 hours for us between driving and photographing only. We edited the shoot in September in between 4 more real weddings that we were capturing & editing AND before heading to Italy on September 31st to go photograph another wedding there in Siena, Italy. They chose photos for us to edit and finish up further when we were gone for the week and returned from photographing the Siena wedding on October 10th, traveling all of October 11th, then capturing another real wedding at a resort in Indiana (an hour away from us) on October 12th, and then we further edited in a high end Commercial Style a whopping 75 images for them while very jet lagged and simultaneously printing hundreds of photos for our clients’ wedding boxes before the next weddings in November-! Needless to say, it’s been an INSANE year and we’re glad we got everything finished on time!
Wedding Day Magazine published 12 of the photographs that we captured into their December 2019 quarterly issue of the printed magazine about 2.5 months ago, then while we were with our immediate families on our well-deserved Christmas visiting our immediate families’ homes in Arizona & California last month Mid-January they then published a blog post of the Styled Shoot on their website including 75 of the images we photographed, styled, and edited! We literally just got the physical magazine 2 weeks ago when we returned, so we’ve been enjoying seeing the images printed in the physical magazine for the first time. Below are our photographs that were featured in the physical magazine in December 2019 2.5 months ago and THEN those 75 of our photographs featured on their website’s blog last month in mid-January 2020 can be found here: https://weddingday-online.com/wedding-articles/wedding-prairie-weddingday-exclusive-style-shoot-rock-run-creek-barn-goshen-indiana
The Day Of the Styled Shoot in Goshen, Indiana
During the shoot day on Tuesday August 27th we didn’t have any say in the date or the shoot times, so we unfortunately had to shoot in humid summer mid-day sun (which we usually try to plan around for real wedding days due to it being the ugliest time of the day- think flashlight under your chin “monster lighting” and a sweaty couple/ sweating photographers all in dress clothes). During the day we got to chat with the models Hailey & Isaac a lot, the planner Sarah of course, the florist a bit, a couple women from Wedding Day Magazine, and the hair stylist for a second in the morning (and briefly saw the venue owner before she left). We were happy to get to meet the few vendors that we met, but were sad that we didn’t get to know them in depth since we were off photographing everything on the Styled Shoot Schedule for 8 hours that day. Those who contributed to the shoot are vendors who at some point within the calendar year paid hundreds of dollars to be featured in the magazine, so we all actually paid to be part of the shoot essentially, though the venue did pay WeddingDay Magazine more to have images taken of the venue itself. No one was paid at all and we do retain copyright of our images from the day. ((Apparently this is normal of wedding magazines, though ALL OTHER magazines that we’ve worked with have paid us at least $400 for ONE cover image that we’ve styled and created and have always paid us to photograph for their magazines. We love crazy Professional Retouching & Editing challenges magazines pay us to do for them and we equally love getting paid to do our job of photographing. For day rates for companies we are priced at thousands of dollars and for real weddings it’s no different)).
Without further adieu, here are our favorite 150 of 2,400 of the photographs that we styled, photographed, edited in a commercial magazine style, and curated for our Wedding Day Magazine Styled Wedding Shoot-! Here we’ve curated OUR favorites! It’s crazy to look back on since we photographed these HALF of a year ago and edited them 5 months ago for the magazine deadline in late September/ early October and we’ve been going non-stop ever since on paid client work.
The day didn’t quiet go in this order, though it relatively did. At the start of the day we styled then photographed detail shots of the shoes, invitations, plates, 2 dresses, and such. We then photographed a little of “prep” of the models getting ready. Did we mention that they’re a real couple from the area-ish?! They’re some of our favorite people from the entire day! As a couple ourselves we love to capture creative couples and we can totally relate to them!
Next up we headed outside to the ceremony spot. There we photographed the couple under the covered bridge, captured a faux little “ceremony” of sorts, and captured images of them with the horse and buggy (that they actually DID get to ride to the reception venue)!
We’re so thankful for the last second addition of the horse & buggy!
After the “ceremony,” we then captured a fake cake cutting, enjoyment at the head table within the reception hall, faux First Dance, and some shots of them in the basement of the venue.
We ended the day photographing the couple on a cute couch by the corn fields, by the barn itself, and then in front of smoke bombs that the amazing Wedding Planner (All in the Details from Indianapolis- Sarah Farthing) brought along with her! ((Did we mention that she was the one who brought the awesome fake rings, details for our detail shots, and more? She was on top of it!)
**One massive difficulty photographing earlier in the day was that we were not allowed to let this wedding dress train TOUCH THE GROUND AT ALL, so the ladies had to keep placing and moving a giant piece of tissue paper under the train of the dress… meaning the model actually couldn’t walk or move around. This was a first for us in our 10 years of wedding photography: a completely immobile bride (not even wheel chair wheels to move)! This made her reaching to pet the horse very difficult, getting diverse angles difficult, and making any movement a burden. The reason behind it all was to ensure that the borrowed dress get no discoloration, snags, or absolutely anything. There was also a giant clamp holding the (too large for her) dress onto our model, so with its bright red handles sticking out at one angle, we had to move around to try to hide those OR completely intricately Photoshop that out in images-! Woo! (This part about the clamp though is common because often the model doesn’t fit into the clothing side sent and you want to make the garment look as flattering as possible in product photos).
The below smoke bomb images were created by taking a ton of Sarah (the planner)’s smoke bombs and running them behind the bride & groom. We then took tons and tons of images and collage-d them together in Photoshop. This isn’t a skill most “Photographers” have now-a-days, so we take pride in our high end editing skills-! Jason did a fantastic job both physically running the smoke bombs around as Jenny photographed it all AND also he did a fantastic job “compositing” the images of the smoke all together into these stunning images-!
By the end of the day we, Sarah the wedding planner, and a woman from Wedding Day Magazine were the only ones left packing up! We bid everyone adieu and went off on the hour journey home (Sarah the planner with a 2.5 hour drive home) and then off to edit for the month as well as continue to photograph and edit our clients’ photos while traveling to California and then Italy to capture a wedding in Siena.
**Here are some behind-the-scenes from the day. (We barely got any behind-the-scenes photos since we were photographing).
We hope you enjoyed these images that we styled, photographed, and edited for Wedding Day Magazine’s December issue (2019)! We never do Styled Shoots for others since we don’t believe in photographers working for free (rather, we to be paid to shoot), so we don’t foresee doing one of these in the near future again soon unless it’s completely put together and styled by us (Jenny and Jason Photography, LLC). The more that photography permeates social media, our phones, our watches, etc., the more folks think that photography doesn’t need to be paid for or that Professional Photographers are a “Dime a Dozen.” We take much offense to that idea since we worked hard for our 5 educational degrees and like to educate folks on the monetary value of each well-lit/ well styled/ well captured image AND the editing that goes in to the final product as well as a high end Professional Photographer and Professional Retoucher’s personal talents that are honed over 10 to 20 years. We don’t make it a habit to dole out free photography to Business Owners or Businesses in general since our working couples pay us very well to photograph their weddings, but if you’re interested in paying our going rates for business photos or wedding photography/ portraiture, we do still have a bit of availability for some dates in 2020 and 2021, so please reach out to us via email at: info@jennyandjasonphoto.com so that we can get to know you and set up an in-person Consultation in our Offices (or via Skype) so that we can sit back, get to know you, and laugh with you!
The 15 VENDORS involved in the Wedding Day Magazine Styled Wedding Shoot:
Photography: Us! Jenny and Jason Photography, LLC (10+ years in the business, real couple, we have 3 fur children & 5 educational degrees- most importantly MFA in Fine Art Photography & BFA Commercial Photography, our physical office is located about an hour from Chicago here in South Bend, IN, and we’ve captured weddings in 3 countries, 8 states, and of couples in from 15 states-!!)
Models: Hailey Holden & Isaac Lowry (Thank you two for being amazing!)
Magazine: Wedding Day Magazine (grab a copy for FREE at Bed, Bath, & Beyond in Mishawaka!)
Planner: All in the Details (Sarah Farthing- Organized it, is Indianapolis based, & brought items that helped with the shoot!)
Florals: Bee Season Floristry (formerly Flowers By Phoebe- We loved the florals! Thanks for sticking around for a second)
Hair & Makeup: True Color Hair Studio (Berrien Springs, Michigan based- Nice to briefly meet you, Natalia! We love your accent)
Dresses & Accessories: Nancy's Bridal Boutique (BOTH gowns were gorgeous- knocked it out of the park!)
Stationery: Noteworthy Expressions (Beautiful card and plexi plastic menu!)
Cake & Desserts: Dutch Maid Bakery (Beautifully hand painted and thank you for the mini desserts!)
Tuxedo: DC Designers TUX SHOP (We love non-black tuxes!)
Rentals: Burns Rent-Alls, Inc. Special Events (The benches/ ceremony things, blue couch by the corn field, tables in the reception area!)
Linens: Linen Hero Chair Covers and Linens (Unique, right?)
Venue: Rock Run Creek Barn (They also own another wedding venue, but this is their newest!)
Horse & Buggy: (We weren’t told the names of the family who lent and drove the buggy!)