Magnifique Photography Ad Campaign 2011

I have had a great interest in France since I was eight years old when my family hosted our first exchange students, Ben.  My older brother then went to France to visit Ben and when I saw the pictures and heard the stories, I knew I would go there someday.  When I was fourteen I saved up for over a year to go to France to visit another exchange student.  I spent two weeks in Paris, and then two weeks at their summer home in Aix-en-Provence.  I fell in love with the lavender fields.  We would eat our meals outside mostly and there was lavender plants all around us and you could smell them all day long.   I have since returned to France two more times and each time I fall in love with something new. When creating my business name, I knew that I would choose a French name and I loved the sound of Magnifique.

When I first found out about the lavender fields in Mona, I knew I had to do a shoot down there that reflected my love for the Provence region, but be very chic and elegant as well.  I wanted to not distract from the beautiful field itself, so I decided to create a unique glass table and used ghost chairs.  I also wanted to incorporate lavender throughout the shoot, as well as white flowers, white accessories, crystals and glass with accents of silver.  For the menu I chose some of my favorite things, lavender lemonade, cucumber salad with tomatoes, feta and fresh basil, cheeses and bread, and my favorite pastery in the world, a koiung aman, made right here in Salt Lake at Les Madeleines.  Each guest would get a favor sachet of Herbs de Provence as well as a sachet of Lavender.  Tracy from the Window Box came up with lots of sparkly details that incorporated the lavender.  I also wanted to choose models that looked like they could be from France.  Alta Moda allowed us to use a gorgeous Vera Wang dress with an asymmetric neckline that added another elegant touch and looked fabulous on our model, Kendyl.  Tuxedo Junction provided us with a charcoal gray tux that looked amazing on our model Russ.  The make-up and hair was done by the amazing Hannah Goodrich and she even did two different styles on Kendyl, a more natural look, and a more couture look.  Davey from Pointe Digital came down to film some of our shoot and Carrie from Carrie’s Cakes sent us down with one of her stunning all white cakes.  It was such an amazing shoot and we even had a ton of bees around to remind me of actually being in Aix-en-Provence.

For this Inspiration shoot I wanted to incorporate some  of my favorite things about France as well as some of my favorite things about weddings.  When brides are planning their weddings I think they need to incorporate things that are important or meaningful to them as individuals, and as a couple.  As they say, the love is in the details, so make sure you have plenty of details in your wedding that can reflect you, your style and personality.

Here are some of my favorites from the shoot.  I even had one of my almost married couple, Tara & Ben, come for a few shots since Tara lives close by and is also in love with the lavender fields.  I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I enjoyed doing it!