Picture Perfect…

Our brand-new look.

Following our hugely successful 2022 dress launch in Harrogate, our dress designer Kay Heeley was quick to add more fabulous gowns to the ‘The Perfect Bridal Collection’ ahead of London Bridal Week in March.

Showcasing on the catwalk, we featured 8 stunning gowns that walked the runway and sparked huge interest in our brand, and even captured the attention from wedding dress royalty, David Emmanuelle, who loved our beautiful model Abigail in the Mikado ‘Sarah’ ballgown.

Well, always following closely behind any new line, is a photoshoot, and those of you who love our blogs, know how much we love a photoshoot day! Or two in this case!

We chose our dates, and we picked our venue, Spicer Manor, the wonderful countryside manor house in the heart or Yorkshire, which is located in our designer’s very own home town of Millhouse Green. 

Kay is on Spicer Manor’s preferred stockists list for her impeccable Bespoke dress making skills and often works with the team at Spicer on their exclusive wedding events. Lisa Hunt, the owner jumped at the chance to work with Kay and the Perfect Bridal team when asked if we could use the beautifully restored rustic coach house in the grounds of the manor for the new shoot.

Kay’s vision for this shoot was completely different from the location we used last year, which was outside, on baron moorland, on the hottest day of the year! 43 degrees in fact!!!

This time we opted for a studio style look so the complete focus was on the dresses, but to add an element of couture, a single 10-meter piece of ivory silk chiffon was  hung from one of the wooden beams of the coach house that fell beautifully behind every gown. Our Photographer Adam Galliford provided the neutral champagne backdrop in the same theme that is running throughout the 12 upcoming shoe and accessories shoots, as well as our exciting new website launching very soon!

IMG 9964 | The Perfect Bridal Company

The shoot ran over the course of two full days, starting at 8.30am when Kay and Adam arrive to set up and prepare the space. Our beautiful model Abigail arrives at 10am ready to start shooting at 10.30am. Kay has prepared a rigorous time schedule to follow in order to capture every single detail, angle and pose of each dress, along with videography for some of the styles too. The schedule was around 20/30 mins per dress, and with the constantly changing sunlight throughout the day, Adam had to reset his lighting on several occasions during each dress to get the consistency throughout the 2 days.

Kay’s love of drama in her photography style marry well with Adam’s signature style of moody and dark photography, meant they couldn’t resist an opportunity during a spell of bright late afternoon sun coming through the windows, to capture a million-pound shot of the ‘Erin’ Gown that wouldn’t look out of place in ‘Vogue’ magazine.

As well as the brand-new dresses in the range, we also featured some fabulous custom-made bespoke head pieces by the incredible ‘Halo Millinery’ which took the look from Bridal to high fashion couture. With the coronation of King Charles just weeks before the shoot, Kay asked the talented milliner Janet, to create ‘hot of the press’ coronation inspired looks to compliment her gowns. A mixture of high, Tudor inspired headbands, that have been so popular in our accessories range this year, but with inspiration from the beautiful headpieces  worn by the Catherine Princess of Wales and her daughter Charlotte on the day of the coronation, as well as the stunning teal and gold Caesar style headband worn by House of Commons leader Penny Mordaunt who carried the sword throughout the ceremony.

tempImageWLdZvb scaled 1 | The Perfect Bridal Company

At around 6.30pm the first lot of images are finished and Kay and Adam sort through the hundreds of images taken over the course of 8 hours. They then decide if anything is missing or any dresses need to be re-shot the following day.

Leaving on a high, the favourite image by far from the first day, was captured of the ‘Grace’ gown with a dramatic ivory headband with hand-made gold leather leaves.

Grace nude 1 scaled 1 | The Perfect Bridal Company

Day two started at 8.30am as Kay and Adam arrived to shoot the remaining 6 dresses as well as the videography in the afternoon.

Dancing light moving around in the coach house through the 5 big glass windows and skylights meant the opportunity for several ‘Arty’ shots with the sumptuous tulle of the gowns. One of our favourites, Spanish inspired ‘Marianna’ with her detachable sleeves enabled us to get some beautiful detail shots.

As the afternoon drew in, we wrapped up the photography and stated on creating some video content for social media and hopefully for the London Bridal Week 2024 catwalk backdrop. Spicer manor is located high up on the Hills of Yorkshire on the boarder of the Pennines, so it was a little breezy to say the least, despite the sunshine! But it was perfect for creating fabulous footage showing the movement of the dress fabrics, and the capes and sleeves, all with the picturesque rolling Yorkshire countryside as the perfect backdrop.

Choosing the final images is always so tough as every single picture was stunning, but Kay and Perfect Bridal Director Dan Mutton went through the hundreds of options and selected around 60 to be tweaked and edited ready for the brand-new brochures and the new website, which we can’t wait to show you! So, stay tuned to see everything here first, all in the lead up to Harrogate Bridal Week in September.

We can’t wait to tell you all about it!

Love Team P.B x

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