A wonderful engagement photoshoot part 1: Easter farmyard barn

In Asia it's quite popular to have pre-wedding or engagement photos taken. Usually, the photos involve the groom in a tuxedo, bride in a white wedding gown, lots of make-up, lots of photoshopping, and some very formal cheesy staged poses. You can probably tell, that's not my thing (but no offence meant to anyone who loves this kind of style of shooting!), and the thought of getting a shoot done for our wedding was inconceivable as we are so tightly budgeted for our coming wedding. One person who DOES my thing, is the very talented Thaoski. I've followed Thaoski for a while on Twitter now, loving the magical storytelling photo shoots she produces and directs. Thaoski doesn't personally take the photos herself, but she conceives the direction and concept of the shoot, edits the resulting photos and posts up a series of shots that tell a story. The result is an imaginative, creative and unique set of memories for the soon-to-be newly weds. As you can tell, I love her work!

So, when Thaoski tweeted saying that her couple she was due to shoot the next day had cancelled and she was offering a free photoshoot for one lucky couple, I literally JUMPED at the chance! I tweeted back seconds after her original shout out! I was thrilled when I got the reply saying we'd made the cut! Thaoski called me and explained that usually she met several times with her couples, ensuring she got a feel for who they were, what they loved, what interested them etc, but as this was a one off last minute shoot, the day was going to be all about improvisation. We'd just go out, shoot, see what works and have fun!

The next day, 9am, I was picking her up from the local train station and driving into the depths of Kent, with hubby-to-be snoring in the back of the car! After a long sunny car journey, with a stop at a very cute and quaint little roadside farm shop to pick up provisions and some little chocolate easter eggs, we arrived at the first of several locations. There we met the very talented Darren Wong, our photographer for the day (who was a real trooper throughout the very long 11 hour shoot, suffering from severe hay fever!) and the ever fashionable Madame Moi, Katy, as stylist (who is also a personal friend which just added to the enjoyment!). Katy had come along armed with a ton of outfits, as had I, and after some rather awkward fumbled wardrobe changes in the back of my cramped Nissan Micra, we were off to location 1 of 5! Darren and Katy had scouted ahead before we arrived and found a brilliant farm barn, complete with bales of hay. Getting on and off the bales was interesting, as was staying on them (they're round so therefore ROLL!), but Darren got some fabulous shots of us laughing and having fun! Anyway, Thaoski is posting up the shots in 5 parts, and part 1, our Easter farmyard barn shoot, is now live! So head on over to her blog here and take a look! I'll be posting further once parts 2-5 are up!


A big big BIG thank you to Thaoski, Darren Wong and The Madame Moi for all your time (again, they all spent a very long 11 hours on our photography session... we didn't get home til midnight!), passion and talent! We can't express our gratitude enough!

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