Morgan Trinker

I am so BEYOND excited to share with you this little baby of mine that I’ve been secretly working on with some of my favorite wedding friends for the past couple of months! This styled shoot has been a huge labor of love, and I’m absolutely thrilled that Green Wedding Shoes (my favorite wedding blog, hands down) decided to share it with their readers today in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. (CLICK HERE to see the feature!)

But first I feel like I should back up and explain how this all came to be. (Feel free to keep on scrolling to get to the photos if you can’t handle my rambling. ;) ) Back in November, my friend Kelly and I sat down at one of our favorite restaurants, Chez Lulu (duh), to take a hard look at our businesses and brainstorm ideas for shaking things up during the off-season. One idea that Kelly threw out was that we should put together styled shoots that encompassed what our brands represent… what an ideal Spindle Photography or Morgan Trinker Photography wedding would look like. Kelly’s vision began coming together easily: she loves anything Art Deco or reminiscent of Paris in the 20’s, so she envisioned a Great Gatsby-esque wedding. (You can see how it all came together for her here- so gorgeous!) I, on the other hand, felt kind of stuck. I mean, I knew the things I liked, but I was having a hard time coming up with a cohesive concept to pull it all together. So I just kind of stopped thinking about it until January rolled around.

I was (no joke) sitting in my living room eating a bowl of Lucky Charms when inspiration suddenly struck. There is one thing that embodies almost every single thing that I love, and that thing is…. St. Patrick’s Day. Think about it: red hair and freckles, the color green, bright happy colors in general, the month of March (and my birthday being just a few days before- TODAY actually, which makes this a pretty sweet birthday present!), the idea of lucky charms (I’m obsessed with miniatures of any sort), my meat-and-potatoes kind of diet (I could seriously probably live by pub food alone), and gold and sparkles. It also represents two things my husband Jamie is most passionate about: brewing beer and collecting and tasting fine whiskies. (Have I mentioned that his full name is Jameson, like the Irish whisky? And that our last name is German for “drinker”? And that a Facebook group called “Captain Morgan Trinker” exists, which consists of German people who drink Captain Morgan? So yeah… it’s pretty much our destiny. ;) )

Once the concept hit me, the ideas began coming together quickly and I was texting Kelly faster than my brain could form complete thoughts. Jamie’s company, Telegraph Branding, does all of the branding work for Avondale Brewery, which is right down the street from us. I had been itching to shoot something in their newly renovated upstairs loft space, and I knew this shoot would be absolutely perfect for it. I imagined a modern, stylish redheaded bride wearing a fun Kate Spade-inspired dress with a charm necklace, a color palette of emerald green (Pantone Color of the year, what what!) and gold, accented by other bright colors, a spread of miniature Irish foods like shepherd’s pies and fish ‘n chips, and of course lots of beer. Because f’real… it wouldn’t be a St. Patrick’s Day wedding without beer.

I knew I would need a TON of help to pull this off, so I called up my friend Kelly Dellinger, who is an oh-so-talented event planner and stylist in Nashville. She graciously agreed to make the trek down to Birmingham, and she also got some of her friends on board: Jasmin of Artisan Flowers, The Bride Room (who lent us a darling LulaKate dress from their new bridal line), Liberty Party Rental, and her sweet husband Drew, who came down with her to help out and I don’t know what we would have done without him! Meanwhile, I asked my friends Joanna Ballentine and Molly Stilley if they would lend us their amazing hair and makeup skills, and my friend Megan of Southern Femme if she’d do some incredible wardrobe styling for us. My friend Laura Burton of Uprising Cakes created a darling charm cake for us, and the always-wonderful Paul and Court of Kinora Films came along to document the whole adventure (see their film at the end of this post!). I also contacted Erin Haines of Be True Designs about designing an invitation suite, because I am a longtime admirer of her work, and she’s equally as obsessed with and inspired by the stylings of Kate Spade, so I knew she was a perfect fit for this project and was THRILLED when she said yes! And last but certainly not least, I have to thank all of our models. Ginger and Zack (aka “Molly” and “Finn”) were the perfect bride and groom for this (thank you Kelly for introducing us!). Not only are they super good-looking with their red hair and green and blue eyes (respectively), but they’re also actually engaged in real life and will be getting married for real this October! AND they are also obsessed with all things Irish. The first places they traveled to together were Ireland and Scotland, Ginger owns an Irish Spitz dog, and Zack plays the bagpipes for crying out loud. Could they be more perfect?! I also have to thank our friends Wes and Emma for playing “wedding guests” for the day and for lending us their awesome bistro chairs. My brother Seth was also a last-minute addition to the “guest list,” and I of course can’t forget the one and only Kelly Cummings, who helped me through the whole process, lent her hand-lettering talents, and ended up also modeling at the last minute. ;) And of course a huge thanks to Avondale Brewery for letting us crash their loft for the afternoon! It couldn’t have worked out more perfectly!

Seriously you guys…. IT TAKES A VILLAGE. And I’m so, so grateful to this entire team for all of their incredible hard work! So for goodness’s sake, let’s get on to the photos! (For info on all the DIY projects, go all the way to the end! And to see the ENTIRE gallery of photos in one of my brand new PASS galleries…. click here!)

And finally, a few notes on the DIY projects (that occupied much of my January and February and at times forced me to vow never again DIY anything— haha, yeah right). Some of you already got a peek at the “Cheers” marquee sign I posted on Instagram. I knew I wanted one of these, but wasn’t about to spend hundreds of dollars on a ready-made one… plus none of them looked quite right. So I was perusing Home Depot one day, desperately searching for any raw materials I could make some letters with, and one of the workers actually offered me 2 huge scrap sheets of 2.5-inch-thick foam board… for free! So I decided to figure out a way to use them. I decided to carve out the letters from the foam, using a template I printed out. I quickly realized this was going to be an incredibly difficult project, but there was no turning back. I then carved out holes for the lights (which are just string lights purchased from Target). I paper-mached over the foam to create an even surface that would take paint and also look a bit crackled and aged like metal. (Strips of newspaper and a flour-water glue mixture… that really is all there is to it!) I then let that completely dry, gave it a couple of coats of gold spray paint, then inserted all the lights. When it was all said and done, it took me the better part of an entire week to complete this project, but it only cost me $16 in paint, and I now have them hanging in my dining room, so I can’t really complain. ;)

I also created the ribbon backdrop using a simple plumbing pipe ($1.50 from Home Depot) and ribbon I bought in bulk from PaperMart (great quality ribbon for the best prices and color selection I found!). The hanging gold dot “chandelier” was made from circles I cut from gold glitter scrapbook paper glued to fishing wire, then attaching to a gold hoop I found at Hobby Lobby for a couple of bucks. The food signs are green scrapbook paper cut in circles, with gold sequin ribbon glued around the edges, attached to lollipop sticks hot glued onto beer bottle caps, all painted gold. The custom beer bottles are just regular bottles that I removed the labels from, then designed and ordered clear vinyl stickers from a local sign shop and attached them. And finally, the charm necklace that Ginger wore, which is one of my favorite elements of the whole shoot, was a fairly easy project: I just ordered the chain and fastenings online, bought lots of different charms (EpochBeads was one of the best resources!), and attached them with needle nose pliers. I’ve never made a piece of jewelry in my life other than elementary school friendship bracelets, so if I can do it, so can you. :)

If you have questions about anything else, feel free to let me know in the comments or email me! I love sharing ideas and how-tos! :)

And once again, you can check out ALL the photos in this gallery… enjoy!

And finally, one last shout-out to all the wonderful people who made this possible. I love each of them so much, and brides- if you’re looking for some awesome vendors, start here:

Venue: Avondale Brewery // Photography and Concept: Morgan Trinker Photography // Coordination and Styling: Kelly Dellinger Events // Flowersmith: Artisan Flowers // Hair: Joanna Ballentine // Makeup: Molly Stilley (of Morgan Ashley Salon) // Wardrobe Styling: Megan LaRussa of Southern Femme, assisted by Becca Griffith // Invitation Design: Be True Designs // Cake: Uprising Cakes // Cinematography: Kinora Films // Calligraphy: Kelly Cummings // Dress: LulaKate // Bridal Salon: The Bride Room // Rentals: Liberty Party Rental