Wed Vibes Photo Shoot at Dover Hall
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Dover Hall is a must-see venue near Richmond, Virginia, so when the luxury wedding brand WedVibes Media reached out to me about providing flowers for an editorial photo shoot there, I was both thrilled and apprehensive. The notice was short, the venue is three hours away, and it was in the middle of a busy fall wedding season, so I would not be able to visit and plan in person.
The mood board was sophisticated and ethereal, featuring gauzy gowns and fluffy white florals. Direction was loose; the editorial team loved the Renaissance Revival parlor and wanted a floral design to highlight the hearth in that room, but they looked to me for other ideas. Fortunately the Dover Hall website has an excellent virtual tour, and I was intrigued by the solarium, imagining a hanging installation of some kind.
I somehow I locked into the concept of stalactites and stalagmites. Stalactites are icicle-like deposits of minerals that form on the ceilings of underground caverns; stalagmites are mirror images of those icicles, rising up from the floor of the cavern where mineral-loaded water has dripped from the stalactite above. Check out this photo from the aptly-named Bridal Cave in Missouri. I envisioned a multi-part hanging installation in which each part would be comprised of only one or two floral ingredients, and they would be mirrored by similar designs rising up from the floor. The whole design would be installed in the solarium, and the portable floor pieces (the stalagmites) could be arranged around the hearth in the parlor.
I thus embarked on a sleepless week, placing flower orders, gathering supplies, and figuring out how to suspend my stalactites from the ceiling of the solarium. I settled on copper plumbing pipe for a rigid structure, with a rope run through to tie it to the brackets in the Solarium. From that I would hang individual “clouds” made of chicken wire, and insert the floral materials into those onsite. The stalagmites were created in my home studio the day before the photo shoot, with the help of Elizabeth, a good floral friend who accompanied me to Richmond for the installation.
Elizabeth and I arrived at Dover Hall just after sunrise and started in the parlor, arranging and rearranging the floor designs till we were satisfied and building a couple of hydrangea columns to add to the composition. The rest of the editorial team arrived soon after, including a gorgeous model, a hair-and-makeup artist, three stunning gowns, and an amazing cake. Soon they descended upon the parlor to begin shooting there, and we moved on to the solarium to install the stalactites.
Full disclosure: there were some snags with my plan! First, the brackets that had appeared in the virtual tour were no longer there. Elizabeth noticed some other points that we could thread the rope through, but the configuration was slightly different than I’d imagined. Once that was done, we quickly decided on a layout for the chicken-wire clouds and then stuffed them with flowers and foliage. When the editorial team was finished in the parlor, they took a break for a costume change, and we whisked the floor designs into the solarium and arranged them beneath their corresponding clouds to create those stalactite/stalagmite relationships. But as the sun rose higher on a beautiful October day, the solarium got hot. And bright. When the team arrived to shoot our installation, the conditions were less-than-ideal. Brittany and Matt did an excellent job of navigating the shadows and reflections, while Elizabeth and I retreated to the kitchen to rest our eyes and hope that the flowers didn’t melt in the heat.
Our hosts provided a lovely lunch which we spent chatting with the other industry professionals who had come from all over the country to participate in the photo shoot. The rest of the team moved on to another costume change and other spaces in and around Dover Hall, while Elizabeth and I broke down the installation, loaded the van, and drove home, exhausted yet satisfied with a challenge successfully met. My only regret is that I never got a taste of Commonwealth Cake Company’s legendary cake.
See the rest of the photos on WedVibes.media, and watch Matt Alt’s gorgeous film here.
