Vintage Wedding Photographer Toronto Ontario

Vintage Wedding Photographer Toronto

My mother’s wedding dress bought for her wedding in 1973 was the inspiration behind this stylized wedding shoot. I found the dress this winter when cleaning out boxes from my parents basement. The only issue was that it had been sitting in its original box for the past 42 years, yellowed from age, with a tomato sauce stain on the front of it from the pasta served (and dropped) at my parent’s wedding reception. I can barely get stains out of my kids clothing now, how was I going to get a 42 year old tomato stain out? I knew I could Photo Shop out the stain if need be but hoped to avoid doing so. I initially thought of taking the dress to the cleaners but knew that the stain would need a lot of work and it was probably going to get expensive. Seeing as my mom wasn’t worried about the fate of her wedding dress (it had sat untouched for 42 years), I figured that starting out by soaking it in Oxi clean couldn’t hurt as she didn’t have any plans for it otherwise. So I created a warm solution of Oxi clean in a large plastic storage container and submerged the dress, soaking it for a few hours. When I came back to check on the dress I couldn’t believe the colour of the water – yellow. I pulled the dress out, rinsed it a few times and voila, the yellow tone from age was gone. Hurrah! The tomato stain was still there and would require a bit more attention. So with a soft tooth brush I gently brushed it in a circular motion, alternating between using a concentrated Oxi clean solution with aerosol hair spray (recommended by my mother in law) and eventually the tomato stain faded. By the time I was finished the stain had almost disappeared, although if you looked closely you could still tell it was there (fortunately it didn’t show up in photos). The moral of this story is that it is possible to get a 42 year old tomato stain out of a white wedding dress, who knew?

So, now that I was going to be able to use the dress, it was time to think about how I was going to style the shoot. I loved the floral guipure lace used in the dress and started thinking about a spring time shoot incorporating floral elements throughout to highlight the theme of the lace. Over the next few months I collected pieces I wanted to use in the shoot and fortunately most of them were from my parent’s house (this shoot wouldn’t have been possible without them for so many reasons). My mom has a collection of tea cups that she inherited from her mother and aunt with beautiful floral details as well as many Cornflower glass vases and a water pitcher with the signature Cornflower floral pattern etched in the glass. She also has vintage green glass plates, green and pink cloth napkins and a silver tea service, somehow a vintage tea party table setting emerged organically from my parents house for the shoot. Perfect. Anything that we didn’t have (glassware, grooms clothing, etc), I bought from thrift stores, and all very well priced. I found the lace favour bags at a party supply store and thought they could function as both place cards and favours by using the tag from one of the tea bags in the favour bag labeled with names (and of course I used a font similar to the Twinings brand). I wanted the flowers to appear as if they all could have come out of our garden and thanks to the help of my friend and florist Sue Bagley I had a blast at the wholesale flower market choosing peonies, alstroemeria, statice, daisy chrysanthemums, rice flower, hypericum berries and ranunculus for the bridal bouquet and centerpieces. Last but not least I needed baked goods for my tea party and thanks to a referral I found exactly what I was looking for (and more) from a pastry chef who lives 20 mins up the road from me (Cocoa Lane Sweeterie); Caron’s work is art in my opinion…absolutely incredible floral cupcakes and wedding cakes. Flowers, flowers everywhere.

With the help of some amazing friends and clients, we trucked everything out to a beautiful location in Ajax (that I had scouted when out on a run) and unloaded it in the middle of no where…at the time I kept thinking “seriously Laurel, what were you thinking?” The ants were out in full force and had a blast biting the feet of those of us who didn’t wear rubber boots (the bride, groom & me). However, it was definitely all worth it as the photos turned out exactly as I envisioned, etheral, warm and romantic.

A gigantic thank you to all those who helped, I couldn’t have done it without you (LITERALLY, that table weighed a tonne!) :
– my beautiful clients, models, friends and movers, Laura and Graham. Not only do you take amazing photos but you are super great at helping to move props. Thank goodness for your pipes Graham.
– my lovely neighbour and friend Barb for making her husband come home early from work (thanks Lamont) so she could come help schlep the props and style for me.
– my makeup artist and friend Simone for your flawless hair/makeup, styling and muscle.
– my wonderful friend Sandy for letting me use her vintage silver cutlery and for planning my incredible vintage tea party bridal shower 6 years ago (it meant so much to me and brought a lot of it to this shoot).
– my talented furniture restorer friend Melanie from Mango Reclaimed for lending me her table/chairs to hold everything.
– Caron, my new friend and pastry chef extraordinaire for the incredible cupcakes and wedding cake.
– my wedding florist and friend Sue for showing me the ways of the wholesale flower world…I will be back ;o)
– my ever-generous mother Donna for your last minute seamstress work, the use of the minivan to move everything (good grief those things are practical), caring for my children while I shot this and for getting married 42 years ago to a really great guy.
– my techo-guru father Jim for getting me into photography over 20 years ago and teaching me the ways.
– my super fantastic Husband for his support and for putting up with all my “photography stuff” which has been lying all over the house for past few weeks…or has it been years?

Vendor info:

Hair and makeup – Makeup Art by Simone – https://makeupartbysimone.squarespace.com/
Wedding cake and cupcakes – Cocoa Lane Sweeterie – http://www.cocoalanesweeterie.com/
Vintage table and chairs – Mango Reclaimed – http://mangoreclaimed.com/
Flowers – Creative Gifts and flowers – https://www.facebook.com/pages/Creative-GIFTS-Flowers/774140199330278?fref=ts