Five Tips For Choosing THE Perfect Wedding Photographer

Your wedding photography is one of the only things that’s going to last forever after your wedding, apart from your LOVE, obvs! The food, the flowers, and the decorations will pretty much only last the day. The dress, favours, and guest book will last longer if you cherish them. The photography is the only thing you can count on to last forever, and bring back the memories which are gonna make your heart smile. This means you really need to take your time finding the most perfect wedding photographer. A photographer that you think is perfect may not be perfect for somebody else, so the key is to make sure you know what you want from them.

These 5 tips will help you to find the perfect wedding photographer:

Know What Style of Photography You Want – There are tons of different styles of wedding photography. Checking out all about these different styles, doing some research and being able to choose the right one for you is super important. You can have really formal looking shots, arty shots, vintage style and even cool edgy photography, so many beautiful variations!

Set Up Meetings – When you’ve looked at different styles of photography, you can find the photographers who offer that service. It’s up to you to then set up meetings with the photographers where you can chat through the service they’ll give you, what you’d like, and anything else to do with the big ole’ day. This should give you an idea of what to expect and you’ll be able to compare services afterwards before you confirm who you’d like to book.

Check Out Full Wedding Portfolios – Don’t just look at the highlights the wedding photographer has to show you, make sure you can look at full wedding portfolios. This will allow you to see all of the shots taken at multiple weddings. You can assess whether you think they’ve captured the right moments, and whether they are in fact the right fit for your day. Weddings by JP say ‘there shouldn’t be any issues with you looking at a photographer’s full portfolio. If there are, maybe you should avoid them’.

Be Critical – Make sure you look at the portfolios with a critical eye. The pictures might look lovely at first glance ,but make sure you look closer. Have they missed important pictures? Are any elements of the shot blurry or out of focus? Do you feel like they are too posed?….eeek, that could be too cringey! You don’t need to tell them this, but you should make a note of it to yourself when making your decision.

Make Sure You Get Along With Them – Getting along with your wedding photographer is reeeeaally important. They’re going to take pictures on the happiest day of your life, and if you don’t feel completely at ease with them your smile might not be as wide, you might not feel like you can relax. Make sure they are somebody you can stand being around for a while and that you feel you wanna welcome along on your day!

Ready to choose your wedding photographer? Use these tips, get your gorgeous face smiling, and say cheeeeeese!

Five Products Every Girl Needs For Glossy Hair

Bad hair days are rubbish, we ALL get them, right? Some days, my hair looks just kinda limp and lacklustre and there just ain’t no way to make it look pretty. And, when my hair looks sad, I feel sad, which makes it all the more rubbish! But, I think, from years of playing around with what works best, I’ve now worked out exactly which products I need to keep my hair in oh-so-lovely condition, hurrah! Whether your hair is naturally dry or a bit on the greasy side, you’ll be able to find brands of all these products that are just right for you, so, everyone can have a fab hair day, every single day! Ready to pamper your locks? Here’s are the five products I think we all need in our bathrooms…..

Shampoo. Whatever your hair type, you’ll need to keep it clean, obvs. If you have oily hair, like mine, you’ll only need to wash it a couple of times a week. For dryer hair, you might wanna up this to every other day. It’s great to figure out how many washes your hair needs, as too few or too many times a week could be damaging it.

Leave-in conditioner. Now, don’t confuse leave-in conditioner with the stuff you use to condition your hair in the bath. All hair types need the former while only some are suited to wet conditioning. Just like with shampoo, some hair types will need this applied more than others through the week. Everyone will benefit from applying it at least once a week, though, I adore doing it!

Heat protectant spray. This is a biggie, possibly the most important hair product you’ll ever own! I would say, don’t ever attempt to straighten or curl your hair without spraying some heat protectant. Otherwise, your hair will dry out and get split ends, waaaah, sad face. Even if you are only blow-drying for a few minutes, you still need to spritz some of this wonder spray on your head to keep your hair looking lush!

Dry Shampoo. One of the best things about dry shampoos is that they often come in compact bottles, so you can pop it in your handbag and take it with you when you’re out and about. I’ve recently and finally become a big fan of this stuff! You can always put an end to any unwanted greasy roots wherever you may be! Don’t forget that dry shampoo isn’t a replacement for the regular stuff you use in the shower though, otherwise your hair sure won’t be looking it’s best! For maximum results, use it to help your freshly shampooed hair go longer in between washes, and, as a fab root booster for a 60’s kinda look. As it’s dry, you can spray it on your hair without worrying about messing up your dress!

Boar bristle brush. If you don’t like styling your hair with gels, waxes or sprays, then you need a boar bristle brush. These handy little wonders help you create great styles without any products. Not sure which style to go for? Try this diy rose bun hair tutorial, super cute, and pretty easy! Not only do these handy tools cut the need for styling products, but they also reduce and frizz and static, and, they also improve the texture of your locks, sah-weeet! There’s only one limitation with the boar bristle brush – you can’t use it on wet hair. To detangle hair straight out of the shower, use a comb to prevent any damage.

There you go! – now you can say goodbye to bad hair days for good, yaaaay!

 

How To Find Artistic Inspiration At Any Time

I really appreciate other people’s artwork. I know how important it is to study the success of others if you want to find your own, and success doesn’t have to mean becoming rich and famous, y’know! It can just be looking at something you’ve made any being super proud. Sometimes it can be hard to find inspiration, especially when your mind is busy with too many other things. But here’s how I find inspiration when I’m struggling….

Get Outside – It’s difficult to be creative if you’re shut in your bedroom or lounging about at home. Sometimes you can find inspiration online, but other times you need to leave the house. Going out can help to refresh your mind and open you up to new ideas. You can go to a museum, gallery or library to find something to inspire you, I do this as often as possible and write heaps of blog posts about exhibitions that inspire me. It’s great sitting in front of a painting, photograph, artifact or sculpture with a notebook or drawing pad and doing whatever comes to mind. But you don’t have to go anywhere in particular. You could just walk around and see what you find that inspires you, it really is ALL around you!

Go Shopping for Some Art – I think it’s important to surround yourself with art if you want to feel inspired more often. It doesn’t have to cost much to buy something to put on your wall or a book or poetry to read. And if you don’t have much money at all, it’s always possible to find things for free. Your can order things online using stores like Cordair Art, or you could go out and find somewhere that sells things you love. Art can be many different things too. It could be a handmade item you pick up at a market stall. The important thing is that someone has put their creativity into it, and it inspires you to do the same.

 

Use Other Media – You don’t have to stick to the medium you work with when you’re looking for inspiration. If you want to draw or paint, reading a book could help to inspire you. Watching a TV show or movie might get you thinking about something you want to do. Listening to music could help you visualize a new concept or give you some inspirational words, music is a massive inspiration for me. So, don’t limit yourself to only using one medium for inspiration, keep trying new ideas, it makes for so much more fun!

Look at Your Own Work – Sometimes we start things and then put them down and never look at them again. Or we finish a piece but then put it in the back of a drawer, so easily done! Going back to your finished and unfinished pieces is an ace way to be creative. You might pick up something you’ve started again, or it might inspire you to begin a new project…. so many creative adventures to have!

I get it, finding inspiration can be hard, but you really have to consciously look for it, be reday and willing to be inspired and it will come to you, just wait and see!

Pretty, Pretty Pictures

collageinsta

So, we ALL love Instagram right? Surely? I totes adore it! So much more pretty than all the other social media streams, and it feels more instant and more satisfying than all the others; no pesky links to click on to reach an article, no faff, just simply things to look at! And you get a real sense of a person from seeing what their eyes see, what they choose to share with you. I have my own Instagram, which I use for this blog; showing my home life, days out, cats and all the little things that make my eyes happy, and now, I FINALLY set one up for my online shop Prim! Oooof! Really don’t know what took me so darn long! It’s the perfect place for you to see regular and easy updates on newly added vintage stock, close-up details of special items, and, some plainly gratuitous inspiration in the form of my favorite vintage dress wearers, my famous muses looking brilliant in vintage dresses…. I mean, it’s just gonna be a plethora, a delight of vintage dresses! Please do join me there and I’ll follow you back! Let’s share pretty pictures!

That Couture Is So Darn Haute

Oh my. Sigh. So. Much. Pretty. The Haute Couture shows have just wrapped in Paris and, goodness me, did they DAZZLE!! As a gal who adores and sells dresses, I love couture shows as they are pretty much ALL about dresses! Statement, amazing, spec-bloomin-tacular, dresses! I spent some time swooning through the images of the shows and, not surprisingly, my regular favourites came up as the ones which made my heart beat the fastest, jeeez, these guys really know how to create beauty! Here’s my favourite dresses from my three top designers…

Giambattista Valli

Those who read my blog regularly will be familiar with the fact that this man’s stuff makes my knees wobble. I mean, seriously. He designs this perfect blend of cuteness and femininity and adds a big ole’ spoonful of quirkiness. I adore that it looks almost like he starts with a really classic structure and then throws a load of unexpectedness at it to give it a harder edge, he overloads and exaggerates ideas. And, the frothy gowns in the last two images…. TOTES my dream wedding dresses!ABCDE


Zuhair Murad

I reeeeally like this guys stuff. I first fell in love with his designs after seeing them on Kristen Stewart, they had just the right dose of femininity mixed with sass for her. I adore the delicacy and the colours here, stunning structures too. I do like a dress that makes you gasp in awe, and he always manages that. I really like the styling of the hard metal belts with the softness of the dresses too.

FGHIJ


Ralph and Russo

Ok, so these two talented people have had my heart for a while, but this season they REALLY floored me. This, is fashion perfection. The first British design house to be asked to show in Paris Haute Couture shows for over a century, it’s obvious their skills are pretty special. The set, the theme of an Ethereal Garden, the pastel paradise; everything was as good as it gets. They had a brilliant arrangement of textures and fabrics, and the details and silhouettes; I can hardly bear the brilliance. This dreamy pastel, sequin and feather fantasia had echoes of the styling in the TV show Scream Queens, so we just know that this look is gonna be ALL over the high streets. I have barely ever seen a collection as beautiful as this. Literally stunning.KLMNO