Wardrobe Wednesday {Vintage Summer Session}

When you’re trying to decide what to wear for your shoot, often I recommend finding a single piece to work around as an inspiration — maybe a child’s dress, a pair of statement shoe, or a piece of jewelry. The same thing holds true for stylized or themed sessions. Find a single concept to start with, and go from there. Don’t try to imagine the entire look at once – you’ll go nuts! Instead, start small and see what happens. If you’re still not sure how this might work, Rebecca has an awesome idea to get you started. Cheers!

Recently I asked our Wardrobe Wednesday fans to give me some ideas about what they’d like to see in my upcoming post, and my question was answered with “vintage” and “retro” and “not costumey” and “family.” I thought, well, that sounds right up my alley! I am so in love with all things vintage and retro…and absolutely love all of the stylized sessions I am seeing lately…so I said to myself, why don’t we put them together? When I have my pre-session consultations with clients, I always give them lots of ideas on props to bring to make their session unique and different. I know this can seem a bit overwhelming to some clients, but I am here today to tell you, it is super easy! It just takes a little bit of creativity and a bunch of Googling, and there you are! Since we are obviously in the throws of summer, I wanted to do something with a summer-inspired theme, and what could be more “summer-y” than lemonade? I started on Etsy and typed in “lemonade” and within about 30 minutes, I had found a dress for the little girl, a flag banner, cute little straws, and the cupcake decorating set. The dress and straws I found first, so that set my color palette. From there, I started imagining things that would look cute (and also be functional) for a family session. Then I headed over to Google, and typed in “vintage soda”, “metal drink tub”, and “pink and green candy.” It was really that easy! In about an hour, I had found just about everything I needed for my stylized session.

Before every session, I always take some time to imagine different scenarios that I might want to try with my clients. That way, I’m not stuck for ideas if they don’t magically pop into my head on site. For this session, I imagined a field of green grass, maybe some little wildflowers (if we were lucky), a lovely tree to hang our flag banner, and my family sitting on a beautiful quilt, surrounded by all things pink, green, and yellow. Cute little cupcakes (that you can bake yourself) topped with the items from the decorating set on a lovely plate…being eaten and enjoyed during the session…maybe even with a little icing fun! Pink soda pop chilling in a bright green metal tub and kids eating candy from the Mason jars. There are so many possibilities with this set up, I could just go on and on!

props for a vintage summer photo shoot - wardrobe wednesday

The wardrobe was inspired by the little girl’s dress and the fact that I knew I wanted something a little bit vintage for Mom. Luckily, I already knew about ModCloth and their fabulous vintage clothing, so I went there directly. I already had my color palette from my props, and since my theme was lemonade-inspired, I quickly scanned through the dresses for something yellow. After finding Mom’s dress, I picked a pop of color for her shoes, and a bit of a retro feel with the owl ring. The boys were fairly easy; I just pulled colors from the outfits I had picked already! Bare feet for kids during the summer is my absolute favorite, so we didn’t even have to stress over choosing shoes. And that’s it! A stylized session pulled together in a matter of hours. You can do it too…it really is amazing what you can find on Etsy and Google! The important thing is to have FUN and enjoy the process…and remember, there are no limits to your imagination.

what to wear for a vintage summer photo shoot