why you'll want a
bridal boudoir shoot
The pre-wedding bride glow is REAL: you're excited, in love, and you've done all the skincare. You've reached the zenith of your own personal gorgeousness, and that is definitely worth commemorating. We'll obviously document you at peak hotness on your wedding day, too, but pre-wedding bridal boudoir portraits are great because…
•your mother isn't right there
• no second cousins are texting you asking where to park at the venue
• you're not about to read vows, cry in public and sign legal papers
In short, you're going to be quite busy on your wedding day – your focus then will be getting married, not indulging in a photoshoot. But indulge you should! We mostly shoot weddings in quite a documentary style, so for more editorial-esque portraits a pre-wedding shoot works really well. (It's a chance to catch your breath just as wedding prep's reaching fever pitch, too.)
Plus, you know what will 100 per cent spark joy in your husband or wife to be? Portraits of you with not much on.
HOW WE SHOOT BRIDAL BOUDOIR PORTRAITS
We'll plan everything with you – what to wear, where to shoot, and so on. Rachel can advise, encourage and hype you up as much as needed.
The location can be whatever you like, as long as it's at least vaguely legal: at home, at a hotel, in the studio, etc. And you'll wear whatever you fancy: your full wedding finery, your wedding-night lingerie, your wedding scent and not much else…
Then on shoot day it'll be an all-girl team: just you, Rachel and our favourite make up/hair/styling experts if desired. (And a case full of cameras, obviously. Digital? Check. 35mm? Check. Weird prisms and toy cameras that look ridiculously cool? Check and check.)
WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR boudoir portraits (short answer: send nudes)
Long answer: print them in a secret velvet-covered album and have them delivered to your betrothed on your wedding morning. Or print them as a stack of fine-art prints in a box covered in linen the colour of the sky on a misty afternoon and call it your "something blue". Or print them as Polaroids, slip 'em in an envelope and slide it under the hotel suite door the night before.
Basically, print them.
And pictures of you aren't just for the wedding day, either: they make the most intimate, personal, treasurable presents for the honeymoon, a birthday, hannukah, xmas, día de los reyes, your first anniversary (hint: the theme is paper), or any anniversary forever after.
Think how good they're going to look twenty years from now. The gift is you, you are the gift.
