Last month, we had the special opportunity of teaming up with Shane Monahan Photography for a winter photo shoot. It was just 20 degrees, but we had some beautiful bridal bouquets left over from our booth at the Bridal Spectacular and wanted to put them to use. Thankfully, Shane was game. He bought himself a new winter hat and some hand warmers, and we headed out to Adams Nature Preserve to capture some outdoor winter beauty. Our own Summer and her husband, Michael, were our models who were champs on that COLD afternoon. They had gotten engaged at Adams Nature Preserve some 12 years ago, so the location held special memories for them and brought a little magic to the shoot.

Our goal was to provide some inspiration to brides who are considering a winter wedding. We brought along a variety of bouquets and boutonnieres to photograph. Our first one was a fun winter white bouquet with seasonal elements, including foraged evergreens and pinecones.

With this we paired a fun boutonniere for the groom made with an interesting leucedendron cone that matched his tweed coat. I often hear grooms say they don’t want to wear bouts filled with frilly flowers and ribbons because they aren’t manly. Let me tell you, guys, I have lots of options up my sleeve for you. I love to use berries, greens, and other interesting items to create a bit of natural beauty that still leaves you feeling masculine and dapper. No need for fancy ribbons if you don’t want them, how about this simple jute twine? There are lots of options for men’s attire. I also liked the accompaniment of Michael’s scarf with his tweed and the boutonniere. Thank you to my friend Ruth for supplying this wool scarf and many of the accessories for the shoot from your amazing closet of goodies.

Then here are a couple other photos featuring the winter bouquet that were cute!

Next we set out set out through the woods to photograph some of the other bouquets. It was so quiet and peaceful as we carefully trod through the snow towards the old barn. Here are two iphone shots I took of us walking in, and then of Shane photographing Summer. I will say thank you to all these folks, and my daughter Everly, for freezing their fingers and toes off on this journey in search of beautiful photos. You are the best!

We stopped in a tall stand of trees to photograph the orchid bouquet. Loved this more horizontal bouquet with peachy tones.

And I loved this veil shot of Summer capturing just the top of the bouquet:

Then we arrived at the old barn in the woods. What a beautiful, rustic place to photograph. There were some fun windows and doors to stage our variety of bouquets and our bride and groom.

We then headed back into the open with the prairie grasses as our backdrop. There was such variety in landscape at Adams Nature Preserve that we had fun deciding where to shoot next. It was getting much colder and darker, so we tossed a beautiful blue coat on our bride along with some fur accessories for fun and captured the last of the light with a bright bouquet of reds with streaming silk ribbons trailing off the stems.

I think this photo would be a great cover for a winter publication!

And then here are a few more fun ones:

All in all we decided that it was well worth the effort to capture the cold, winter beauty. If anyone is looking for a very talented, artistic, kind, professional photographer for your wedding, I cannot recommend Shane Monahan from Sioux City enough! He hauled all sorts of lighting equipment along to get some really amazing light on our subjects. His creative talent left us humbled and grateful that he was willing to do this shoot with us. Check out his website at www.shanemonahanphotography.com to see more of his amazing work.

We are already dreaming up our next stylized photo shoot….I’m thinking flowering fruit trees in the spring and maybe a horse or two with our models….who knows. Natural beauty abounds in the spring, so we hope to capture some of it for our portfolio.

Thanks for stopping in to our blog. If you have a favorite of the above photos, would you tell us in a comment? We will be uploading some favorites to our website soon so we would love to know which ones you would choose!

Winter Photoshoot