I always love seeing behind the scenes, and today’s a quick peek into our styled shoot on Bald Head Island! Faith, Robyn, and I (#dreamteam) were all so, so excited for this styled shoot, and the flurry of texts in the weeks and days leading up to the shoot were pretty epic. I loved sharing with them sneak peeks of the details and when our dreamy wedding gown (from the amazing Alexandra Grecco) and the stunner of an engagement ring (thank you, Trumpet and Horn + Claire Pettibone) arrived. We’ve dubbed them #weddingplannerprobs – when my home is filled with wedding dresses and bridesmaid dresses and engagement rings and wedding cakes… but none of them for me! Haha. I definitely did many happy dances around my office as all of the details came together and packages and design items kept arriving at my door.

The day of the shoot was a long whirlwind of a day – but absolutely incredible nonetheless! There are a lot of moving parts to a styled shoot, and I often describe them as a wedding, minus the guests. For those who don’t know what a styled shoot really is about or who haven’t participated in one of the day-of, here’s a little snapshot at how our day unfolded! I left my home at 6:00am with a car completely loaded down with everything we’d need for the day. I headed to Wilmington, picked up the centerpiece, bouquet, floral dog collar (!!), and bouts from the amazing Kickstand Events, and then raced down to Southport so that I could catch the 10:00am ferry over to Bald Head Island with Faith and her mom. Thankfully, I made it with about two minutes to spare! We loaded the contents of my entire car safely onto the ferry (let me say, I kept that majorly precious engagement ring in my purse at all times!), hopped on the ferry, and headed to the remote and beautiful Bald Head Island! BHI is only accessible by ferry, and you can only drive golf carts on the island. So quaint! As you can see here, my golf cart was loaded down with all of my bags of supplies + decor + props for styling, a wedding cake, a wedding dress, all of the flowers, an engagement ring, a table, chairs, pillows, paper goods, and so much more. Such an adventure!

The day was busy but also not too hectic. I loved working alongside everyone, and I’m so thankful for their talents! We scouted out the island to find the perfect backdrops for our setting, which meant driving golf carts around for a few hours, walking along the beach, and chasing the perfect sunlight. Once we found the ideal locations, we got down to business and made some magic happen. Everyone on the island was so enamored by the “wedding,” and it was fun showing off the dress and flowers. Despite 40 MPH winds on the beach, it was a dream of a day! The candles wouldn’t light in such strong wind, the candlesticks and glasses kept toppling over, and we had to use all of us + Faith’s light reflector as shields against the wind… but it was all so worth it to bring this elopement vision to life! I also love, love, LOVE that Robyn & Jordan Van Dyke, our stellar models, were engaged in this exact spot about six years ago. So special! And the sunset was absolutely divine that evening.

After we lugged alllll of our props, decor, and supplies back up to our golf carts, washed the sand off of us, and applied even more big spray, we attempted to grab a celebratory dinner on Bald Head Island. It was to no avail, though, as one of the restaurants doesn’t allow dogs (their dog, Sammy, was with us all day as a model!) and the one other restaurant stopped serving food at 7:30pm (we arrived at 7:40). Ha! Thankfully, our ferry ride back to the mainland was filled with reminiscing about the entire day!

We cannot WAIT to share film images from the day oh so soon!!! I had a sneak peek of six images already, and I cried happy tears because of how magical and stunning it turned out. Stay tuned, friends!!