‘Written In The Stars’, A Celestial Styled Shoot

Written By Lauren Gardner

When you think of your love story, you may think is was fate, a love destined to be by the Gods themselves. That’s what I wanted to incorporate into this shoot. I wanted to bring in all kinds of celestial elements, because who doesn’t want a wedding under the stars?!

The Details

With this being a celestial themed wedding, I wanted to add in elements that made it feel true to my vision. We added in a gorgeous sapphire blue linen with beaded bedazzles in it to use as the underlay for all the detail shots, then threw in some twinkle lights to added in that light element we tried to incorporate in everything.

The elements in the deatil shots include:

  • The Invitation

  • The Rings

  • The Bride’s Necklace

  • The Bride’s Earrings

  • Goddess Crown/Headdress

  • A Vintage Jewelry Box

  • A Strand of Twinkle Lights

  • Wax Stamps

  • A Perfume Bottle

  • A Tassle

The Tablescapes

The guest tables were something I was VERY excited about! If you know me at all, you know I thrive when I have creative freedom, and this shoot just goes to show how unique your wedding can really be! Something most couples tend to skip out on, is the creative aspect. I know designing and planning a wedding can be challenging at times, but there’s no right or wrong way to do it! I always reccommend to take something you love, like constellations for example, and mold your wedding around that idea. Add in hidden elements and easter eggs to make it that much more special, I promise you won’t regret it.

The first guest table design I did, is by far my favorite! I knew I wanted to include a free standing floral arrangement on one of the guest tables with hanging geometric figurines, but I had no idea it would turn out SO GOOD!

The decor elements in this guest table setup include:

  • A Hanging Floral Arrangement on Gold Stands

  • Geometric Figures Hanging From The Arrangement

  • Pillar Candles

  • Greenery Garland

  • Gold Votive Candles

  • Gold Charger Plates

  • White Dinner Plates and Violet Salad Plates

  • Sapphire Linen Napkins

  • A Purple Dinner Menu

  • Gold Silverware

  • Teal Vintage Glassware

Not only was the decor setup incredible, but we opted to take some bridal portraits with the bride and groom infront of the guest table and they turned incredible! Especially when we brought in the sapphire blue couch for the couple to lounge on and postioned it infront of the table.

Below you can see more photos from this guest table setup, along with the bridal portraits of the bride and groom infront of the table.

The second guest table decor design was meant to play with light, and make it seem like you were dining amongst the stars; hence why there are so many twinkle lights!

The decor elements in this guest table setup include:

  • Black Multi Sized Taj Boxes with Twinkle Lights

  • Greenery Garland

  • Place Cards for Guests

  • Black Charger Plates

  • Violet Dinner Plates

  • Violet Satin Napkin

  • A Purple Dinner Menu Designed to Look Like the Moon

  • Gold Silverware

  • Teal Vintage Glassware

The Sweet Heart Table

When I designed the sweetheart table, I first started off with the hex arbor backdrop. I knew I wanted to include that behind the sweetheart table and have floral elements drooping down creating various heights for the installment, and I knew it’d look really cool for any sweetheart portraits we decided to take!

I wanted to make the couples sweetheart table feel intimate and romantic, so what better way to do that than to surround them with candles? I also wanted to ensure they felt secluded, yet in the center of their guests at the very same time. In order to do so, I took two side tables and placed that on either end of their table setup to create more spacing from their guest tables and to allow more room for the couple. Ultimately it made the sweetheart table feel like the couple were in their own little world, while still being surrounded by their guests!

The decor elements in The sweet heart table include:

  • A Hex Arbor Backdrop with Floral Installations

  • A Sapphire Blue Sofa

  • A Sweetheart Table with a Black Linen

  • Pillar Candles and Gold Candelsticks of Varying Heights

  • 2x Side Tables with Pillar Candles

  • The Bridal Bouquet

  • Gold Charger Plates

  • Gray Velvet Linen Napkin

  • A Purple Dinner Menu Designed to Look Like the Moon

  • Gold Silverware

  • Teal Vintage Glassware with Stars

Take a look at the gallery below for more photos and different angles of the bride and grooms sweetheart table!

The Cake

As a wedding planner, I sometimes get tired of seeing the same old things over and over again. For the cake, I wanted something fresh, something out of the box, and to stay on tune with the celestial theme, I wanted it to light up…

I’ve used Ami with Ami’s Cakes before, and I have always loved how she is always able to think outside of the box to create unique desserts for her clients. So obviously, I HAD to have her design the cake for the Celestial shoot. As per usual, I gave Ami creative freedom when designing the cake, but sent her a few inspiration images from my pinterest. Her challenge though, and the one thing I knew I wanted, was to have the cake light up in some way.

When photographing the cake, we all knew it was WAY too stunning to just do your average wedding cake photos, so we decided to stage it a bit. We ended up taking it off the table we origionally had it set up on, and moved it to the grand piano the venue had, and had the couple cut it there. And BOY OH BOY we got some incredible couple portraits from doing so! We also staged the cake with some of the decor we had around the space such as pillar candles, votive candles, greenery, hanging floral stems, and a few star figurines.

If anything, THIS is your sign to do staged bridal portraits with your cake! Don’t be afraid to think outside of the box and stage some of your photos, because more than likely, they’ll become some of your favorites!

You can see more photos of the cake design, setup, and bridal portraits below.

The Flowers

Flowers will make or break any event. There are times when I’m setting up decor for a wedding and the flowers haven’t arrived yet, where I look at the space and think “this is so ugly…”. Then of course the florist comes and adds all their touches, and it completely changes the entire look of the space! So when adding in flowers to this shoot, I had to be careful. Too much would overshadow any celestial and light elements, but having too little would make the space feel empty.

The hardest part of the floral design for this shoot, is figuring out how the heck to make ‘celestial floral’. Like seriously?! It’s not like there’s flowers growing in space!

I decided to stick with the color scheme though of blues, purples, and pinks, which ultimately ended up matching everything else very well!

For the bridal bouquet we opted to go for a loose and flowing bouquet with hanging ribbons in our color scheme. The florist picked out all the stems, and used a unique display of colors that ultimately looked so cool!

For the groom’s boutonniere I chose to go for the trending floral pocket square rather than your traditional boutonniere and it was such a hit! It was easy to put on, didn’t fall off, and the groom could take it off and keep it forever after the wedding day!

You can take a look at the floral elements from the gallery below.

The First Dance

Your first dance as husband and wife should be memorable, special, and let’s be honest- the talk of the night! Most couples however don’t know what they can do to make their dancing special, so I wanted to show off some cool machines that couples can rent that really will make your dance the talk of the town!

This was one part of the shoot that I was heavily focused on and wanted to make sure got pulled off perfectly. I mean let’s be honest, how can you have a celestial wedding with no fireworks or fog?!

While we didn’t actually use fog or fireworks, we used two seperate machines to give us these effects. The first one is called a cold sparks machine. This machine creates realistic looking fireworks that, get this, are NOT flammable! We then paired the cold sparks machine with the dancing on clouds machine, which is dry ice based and sticks low to the ground rather than forming in the air like a fog machine. The dancing on cloud machine allows the dry ice to stick to a certain area on the dance floor, and never rise above 3 feet, creating the perfect effect for ‘dancing on clouds’!

You might be wondering though why the fog looks purple. Thats because we added uplights underneath the fog, that ultimately changed the color of the fog to this stunning violet hue! You can see the small uplight fixture in this photo to the right, right above the brides dress shooting up a purple beam. Those uplights were placed in a circle around the bride and groom for their first dance, which the dancing on clouds machine ended up covering in the end.

You can view more hotos of the couples’ first dance below, along with the cold sparks machine and dancing on clouds machine.

The Lounge Setup

Lounge setups have become really trendy over the years, and I try to add them in to every wedding I do. Not only are they a fun place for your guests to hang out and talk during the reception, but they are really fun to use for bridal portraits! Besides this lounge setup, we also included a blue couch and side tables at the headtable, and during the bridal portraits, we ended up moving that blue couch to take photos on as well! When you add in furniture, the photo options are endless!

If you’re thinking about adding a lounge setup on your wedding day, this is your standard furniture rental/setup below.

The Furniture elements in The lounge setup include:

  • 1x Couch

  • 2x Arm Chairs

  • 1x Vintage Trunk, Used as a Coffee Table

  • 2x Side Tables

  • 1x Vintage Rug

Below are some photos from our vintage lounge setup and bridal portraits.

The Bride

For this shoot, I wanted the bride to emit Goddess vibes. In order to do so, we included some really fun elements such as her Goddess crowns! If you look closely, she has multiple crowns she uses throughout the photos. Another fun celestial element we added was the jewelry, which was mostly opal. The bride wore an opal engagement ring, with matching earrings and a necklace.

The Dress details:

When it came to picking the right dress, it was more of a challenge than I expected! So many dresses have floral elements, but I didn’t want any of that. I wanted a dress that was truly unique, something that would fit perfectly with the theme of a starry night.

When you think about it though, what would a Goddess wear on her wedding day? It’s not like I had anything to go off of, so I stuck to the basics; sparkles that reminded me of stars glittering in the night sky.

If you look closely, you’ll notice that the bride wore two different dresses, each one displaying something different.

The first dress brought in the sparkle element I was looking for. When she moved, it looked like a thousand stars were glittering off of her! Pair that with the pearls, another feature the dress had that I loved, and I thought it was the perfect dress!

The second dress we used, had these gorgeous off the shoulder sleeves that swooshed behind her when she walked, giving her an ethereal feeling. We then paired a stunning glitter veil with that dress that really pulled the entire look together giving her a royal look.

Lauren Gardner
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