THE INSPIRATION BEHIND THE DESIGN:

Kauai is the oldest island in Hawaii, often known as “The Garden Isle”.  Its timeless beauty radiates through its lush mountains, blooming gardens, and calming beaches.  It was only natural for our team to gather inspiration from Kauai’s jaw-dropping landscapes.

As we began to collaborate we immediately knew that the Plantation Gardens Restaurant & Bar, Poipu was where we wanted to hold our stylized shoot.  The plantation house look, two acres of green land, and large succulent and cactus garden embodied the bohemian, organic theme we were striving for.  What better way to compliment the greenery that surrounded us than by adding vibrant pops of red, orange, and yellow inspired by the natural color change of a ripening mango.  Better yet, to include mangos amongst our décor!

While the design came together, we realized that we still needed something that would set, the sought-after bohemian style wedding, apart from the rest.  What came to mind is probably one of our favorite parts about this stylized shoot, the ceremony aisle décor.  We’ve seen many floral script aisleways as well as a handful of floral bed ombre aisleways. However never the two combined, which is exactly what we did.  The ceremony décor consisted of farm benches, an ombre script of florals changing from red, to orange, to yellow, then to white. Lastly, a beautiful large plumeria tree decorated with white orchid garlands and soft white draping.

BEATING THE SUN:

No matter how much or how hard you plan, there may always be some type of obstacle you must overcome, whether it be a natural element or overlooking a detail.  On the day of our Kauai Shoot, there were a few hurdles we had to get through, one of which being something that we could not change, beating the sun.  In order to get the best lighting, we knew that we would need to get everything set up by sunrise.

The team woke up at 4:00 in the morning to prepare for hair and makeup to begin at 4:30 AM.  We packed everything into our cars and were on the road by 6:10 AM.  With very little sleep from the night before, coffee was definitely on our minds.  Sunrise was at 7:18 AM and set up needed to be complete by 7:30 AM. There was no time to mess around.  We had exactly an hour to get everything set up and perfected for photos to begin at 7:45 AM.  The team had a slow and slightly rough start with how tired everyone was. Once we got the ball rolling we were able to complete the task at hand and produce a stylized shoot that we are very proud of.  One of the most valuable lessons we learned from this stylized shoot was that it never hurts to pack the night before and to always check and re-check your packing list.

A FEW WORDS FROM OUR DESIGN COORDINATOR:

“The hardest, but the most rewarding part about a stylized shoot, is having the freedom to create a wedding design from scratch.  There were definitely a few design pieces that I visualized differently from our amazing vendors. In the end, it all came out 10 times better than what I envisioned. My favorite part was that moment I got to step back from the final product and take it all in. To see my design, with the help of our incredible vendors and the collaboration of the ABC team, come to life.  I was in awe!”

Shoutout to these amazing vendors. We couldn’t have done it without you!