Photo Shoot | Pier33 | Mooloolaba Sunshine Coast

Back in February 2020 Naomi and I thought let’s do a styled photo shoot for something different and at a location outside of the Sunshine Coast Hinterland. We had set up a wedding ceremony at Pier33 back in January and thought what a beautiful venue with the boats, the fresh white crispness in the function room and of course the beach just over the road.

 

Naomi started working on a styling concept and we both agreed to work with some vendors we hadn’t had a chance to work with or haven’t had much time to spend with, as weddings often we pass by each other so quickly we don’t get to know the vendors personally. Given the shoot would be at a beach side venue we opted for a modern, coastal shieke vibe using the soft colour tones.

January 2019, we worked with a great photographer but did not get much time with her, but we LOVED her style and thought let’s ask. So, we did! Mallory Sparkles Photography is AMAZING!!

 

It took us a long time to get this shoot together all thanks to Covid19. To be honest this shoot was so much work I wondered whether it was even worth doing. Man, I was wrong! Yes, I admit when I am wrong (sometimes! Haha) Mallory has sent us some sneak peaks and as a group of creatives we are all in love. Seeing just these snippets of the day I now know why we did it. Mallory is sensational and so down to earth. She is also a new mum who adores her new little fellow, so we are so thankful she came to hang out with us whilst her hubby looked after their little bub.

So, the initial styling concept was purple’s and grey as it would look amazing against the white walls in the upstairs room at Pier33 Mooloolaba……………………. ok so the photos clearly do not show this concept whatsoever!! This is where we as wedding vendors on the Sunshine Coast tell all our couples to trust your suppliers. Due to the Covid19 pandemic flower prices have escalated and our original purple backdrop of florals was going to be far too expensive especially when us vendors have been crippled by Covid, the extra expenses are not necessary. Just prior to the shoot Samia from Oh Honey Florals informed us of the costs, so we changed game plan. Given this was last minute we called on Matt from Balloons by TwistedMr to put a backdrop together for us with an idea we had. Both Samia and Matt nailed the brief to formulate our new style, so we changed the whole concept over to pastels using blues, pinks, blush, orange, whites, all the nice beautiful soft tones.

With the entire concept changing and quite late in the planning process this affected all the suppliers, fortunately Jess from LittleJDesign worked in with the new concept with her stationary to set off our beautiful tablescape and marry in new designed welcome signs, to Sommer our beautiful celebrant who always coordinates her clothing to match in with the scheme and to her couples personalities, as did Mel from Choclate2chilli. We have worked on a few styled shoots with Mel and let her be her own creative. Each time she has done something new for her and when she showed us some pics of what she had in mind we said go for it. Mel made a cake she had not done before using macaroons and was able to create the cake using our pastel colour concept. Mel’s cake was bang on as it had a modern twist and looked amazingly beautiful in the pastels and tied in so beautifully with the rest of the styling. Not to mention it was yum as always!

We were apprehensive about changing the game plan as its not at all what we had envisioned and going with a blue colour at a Hampton inspired beach style venue we did not want it to look ‘cheap and tacky’. Which sometimes using blue tones at a seaside venue can do! Anyhow we put all our trust into our collab team and my friends this is why I say trust your suppliers they know what they are doing. It all came together just beautifully.

With all the styling complete we needed models and dresses and were so appreciative of Paddington Brides coming up from Brisbane to showcase several dresses from their beautifully custom-made collection. We were fortunate to have 2 stunning models, Tiannah and Angelina and real-life couple Karis and Sam who were so much fun. Karis’ snort laugh had us all in stitches all day long. Karis does not wear much makeup ever and said she felt amazing once Megan had completed her makeup. Megan was able to use soft tones and keep Karis clean and fresh and not feel uncomfortable with layers of makeup and bright colours given she does not wear makeup often. The ladies all looked amazing especially once they were finished off with their beautiful hairstyles by Rolling Scissors. Sandi has been in the wedding industry an exceptionally long time. She just does her thing on the day and I have complete faith & trust in her work. Sandi and her daughter Ashy who she has trained were able to work in the moment. All our models entrusted the ladies, and all were so happy with their ‘look’ we even had Tiannah in tears she was so happy! Lucky her makeup had not been done at this stage!!

Given we had started to plan this photo shoot pre Covid and were ready to shoot in March/April it has taken a long time to get here to this point. After having done a few styled shoots of late, as we are not on site with wedding as much now thanks to Covid, I was putting this to the side and was not going to worry about following through. The team of suppliers said, ‘let’s just do it as we had already started, and Naomi was keen to see it completed’. My heart wasn’t in it and everything seemed to change and go wrong so to speak so I was feeling very disheartened however we have such a supportive, strong and beautiful network of wedding suppliers in the wedding industry here on the Sunshine Coast we banded together and made it happen. If it were a wedding day, we do not have the choice to say not to worry we just have to roll with punches on the day and make sure our lovely couples have their dream wedding regardless. It is what we do.

I cannot sign off from this until we say a massive thanks to Rachel from Tawny Photography and Film for jumping on board the day prior to this shoot. Our original videographer had an emergency come up and could not attend and we really wanted video to capture this beautiful venue and work the suppliers put in. Just shows even if it were your wedding day and one of your suppliers could not make it, as a team, we would ban together to ensure you had a replacement. We cannot wait to see Rachel’s work as she is simply amazing at what she does and captures so many beautiful moments in her film work.

I didn’t mention everyone in this blog as there was a quite a number of us to bring this shoot together but all I can say is I am super thankful to have Naomi on my side and to all the amazing vendors who collaborated with us to bring this shoot to life. We ate all day long with the awesome food at Pier33 Mooloolaba, let our creative flare shine and had a lot of laughs and fun all day. Just what we all needed during these ‘unprecedented’ (because we have not heard that word enough!) times.