Wedding Blog

Today’s behind the scenes at Bridal Guide Magazine post comes to us from  Senior Associate Editor, Elena Donovan Mauer.

Greetings from New York’s Lower East Side—or maybe we’re technically in Chinatown. Either way, here we are wrapping up the January/February 09 issue’s “Party Planner” photo shoot (don’t we work mighty far in advance?) and I’m coming to you via my laptop.

As I was sitting here, watching everyone toil away trying to make these three magazine pages look gorgeous, I was thinking about all the things bridal magazine readers would probably never guess about what goes on at this type of shoot.

First off is the location. Certainly, there are plenty of stunning photography studios in New York City, but there are also some in very hidden spaces.

This is the entrance to the studio where we’re shooting. Doesn’t look like much, huh?

But it’s actually pretty nice inside. Here’s a lounge area complete with reading material in case of any down time.

Party Planner is a section designed to give our readers ideas for planning their own weddings and parties, so almost every time I work on this story, I feel a little like I’m planning another wedding! This is what makes it so fun—and, as you brides know, a little stressful.

In the story we’re currently shooting, we’re providing lots of fun ideas for pre-wedding events: showers, bachelorette parties and rehearsal dinners. So this time, I didn’t plan any weddings, just three awesome parties.

We have lots of products to shoot. Here’s the tower of unpacked boxes to prove it…

… and their former contents, laid out ready to shoot.

We like to have lots of inspiration on hand, so there are usually magazine pages lying around. This time, we were inspired by one of our own previous Party Planner stories.

In advance, we’ve planned everything out pretty carefully—each page usually has a color scheme and concept. And we know exactly how many shots we need to get done.

I’ve seen too many chaotic things happen on photo shoots, so I like to stay ultra-organized. This is my Excel spreadsheet for the shoot, complete with emergency phone numbers.

A few weeks before the shoot, we have a meeting where our Editor-in-Chief—Diane Forden—art directors and I choose the products we’re going to feature. So we have just about every item in the office in advance. This leaves guesswork to a minimum. But things like flowers and cakes don’t show up until the day-of. (Sometimes I have nightmares that a cake shows up looking completely terrible!)

This is an example of a cake sketch that a cake designer gave me before a recent shoot so I’d know exactly what’s coming in. (The sketches make me rest so much easier. Less guesswork.) Does this cake look familiar to you?

And here’s that designer—“Pastry Prince” Tony Wright of Cakes By Tony. Today, he showed up to deliver his own “rehearsal dinner” cake and to put on some finishing touches before we photographed it. I love getting to know the designers—and working with them to combine my ideas with their talent. Every cake that comes in feels a little like my own wedding cake!

So I know what you probably want to know now: do I get to eat those delicious-looking cakes after the photog shoots them? I hate to burst your bubble, but usually the gorgeous cakes that you see in the magazines aren’t made of real cake. This is the bottom of Tony’s masterpiece—it’s Styrofoam covered in fondant icing. Usually, the Styrofoam’s just there to save the designer the time and money it takes to bake an edible one—and it can be easily replaced with real, tasty cake. So it’s not to say that you can’t have a real wedding cake that looks like one you’ve seen in a magazine.

What actually WAS real on this shoot were some cupcakes from a little bakeshop called Tribeca Treats. Yum. We all indulged after our photographer, Mike Essig, captured the perfect photo of them.

This is what the cupcakes looked like as Mike was shooting them. All the items we photographed needed a white background, so a large roll of white paper served that purpose. From what I understand, the white board on the other side of the cupcakes reflects light so it hits the cupcakes (or whatever we’re shooting) just right. Mike and his assistant, Tom, are constantly moving around pieces of white board and exchanging technical lighting terms that I don’t quite get to make the items we’re shooting look beautiful. They’re true professionals.

The photographers are also sometimes performing some semi-acrobatic stunts. This pic is kinda dark (I didn’t want to mess up Mike’s pic with my flash), but if you look closely, you can kinda see that Mike is standing on one foot on top of a box and Tom is holding a lighting fixture of some sort.

There are a lot of tricks of the trade, too. Mike used this blue tack on a lot of stuff to hold it in place—remember that stuff college kids used to hang posters in their dorm rooms?

For example, the candles we had were a fraction of an inch too narrow for the candlesticks we were shooting, so we used tack (this time, white) to keep them standing straight.

Another fun trick: a picture frame balances on a block to give it the right amount of shadow.

So what do us editors do while the photogs are snapping away? We’re constantly prepping the items to make them look their best. Here, our amazing intern Lisa is steaming a “Bride to Be” sash so it’s not all creasy.

And here I am modeling it—after our associate art director, Lindsay, put it on me! We manage to have some fun on set.

We also run errands. Lisa headed to an Asian grocery store up the block to pick up some drinking straws to shoot with some beverages we were featuring.

And today, I stopped at the store on the way to the studio because we wanted to accent a cocktail with a strawberry. I made sure to choose the best-looking strawberries—and then set to pick the prettiest one of the bunch and arrange it on the glass. I was so proud that I arranged it so perfectly on the first try—I had to take a picture! Even the green part looks like it was painstakingly arranged. Maybe I could moonlight as a food stylist? (Sorry—it’s the little things that excite me!)

We even sometimes have to do the DIY projects we feature ourselves! I took this photo at a shoot for our November/December issue. Another awesome intern, Isabel, and I had to actually assemble some favor boxes from a kit for us to shoot. See how I feel like a bride over and over? I even have to do the manual labor!

Lindsay even had to write on a product—a wedding shower game card—to look like it was in use. We do a lot of considering about the most interesting way to photograph and this made the card—definitely gave it some extra oomph.
So I’m not going to lie. No matter how meticulously I plan these shoots, there always seems to be some minor glitch to take care of on set. This time, Lindsay and I decided we needed a cake plate to shoot the cupcakes on. It is no easy feat to find the perfect plate when you’re away from your desk, your Rolodex and your files.

Here, Lindsay’s on the phone with our in-house home design guru, Aimée, asking her for recommendations. For a moment, I panicked inside that we wouldn’t find the right thing, but Lindsay managed to call a few different vendors, and the publicity rep for Pottery Barn and Williams Sonoma had some fantastic options. Lindsay sent a messenger to the stores to pick up…

… and voila, we had our options!

That’s right, a lot of the products we shoot are loaned by the stores or designers that carry them. We just have to return everything when we’re done and give them a credit in the magazine.

One of my favorite things about photo shoots? The instant gratification! With the advent of digital photography (and the extinction of the Polaroid) most photographers are shooting digitally. So right away, we can see what each shot looks like instantaneously on a computer screen. Here, Lindsay and Mike are evaluating today’s photos. And they like what they see! Which means… I’m done! Time to pack everything up and end the day—such a relieved, accomplished feeling. Thanks for joining me on set!

Oh, one last thing… our great Editor in Chief, Diane Forden, just returned from a trip to Italy where she saw so many beautiful wedding gowns. You can see the pictures and get a behind-the-scenes look at how these dresses were made at her blog, From Diane’s Desk. They really are gorgeous. Enjoy!