The Day of the Shoot - Bridal Session

Pascale and Leigh

After taking a well deserved rest, we prepped for the Bridal session of our shoot. Zoe did a brilliant job transforming a casual makeup into a bridal one. Still the makeup was not heavy at all. I had several blooms of Gardenias and Zoe skillfully gathered them on one side of Pascale's swept up hair. As for Leigh, Zoe put a little flower on one of her two ponytails.

Then, it's putting on the dress!! Leigh was so cute with her white dress. It had a flower in front and she's the cutest flower girl. Pascale's dress was organza with a dash of embroidery, and it was pretty heavy because of the train. Zoe was a great help fixing the dress (secret) and when Pascale emerged from the room, it was "wow".

I gave Pascale the posy and Gothic did a test shot. Pascale told me afterwards that she was feeling kind of uneasy in the gown. Then she told me what made her soften up and relax. Not in a million years would it cross my mind that Gothic would say to her, "imagine the first time you looked at Leigh's ultrasound."

I did not know about this till much later, when Pascale was back home in Japan and one day we just chatted about the shoot. Gothic then said to Pascale, "just do whatever you are comfortable, but do not look into the camera". I guess that sentence really worked on relaxing Pascale. You could definitely see the softness in the photos where Pascale was holding the posy.

We had a specific shot in mind. It was for Pascale, with her back to us, turn and lift her gown a bit to show the tip of her shoes. All this time, I was guilty of giving bag after bag of snacks to Leigh, to keep her from running to Pascale. I guess poor Leigh missing her nap and was tired after so much activity made her want to run to mommy for comfort and security.

The peeking at Gothic continued and the photo above was just that, captured on camera. We had a few great photos of Leigh holding the flower girl posy. By now, Leigh could not stop looking at Gothic's camera, so the three of them sat on the sofa, with Gothic showing Leigh frame after frame of "Oh, who's that?" I clicked a couple shots away.

After that Pascale held Leigh in her arms and there were a few shots with their heads touching and Pascale smiling and looking at Leigh. It could not be any sweeter than this.

This is it, the bonding, the love. True to our theme, we did it and I could not be happier. Happy Mother's Day!!

(Photo by Gothic Heart/Artistic Direction Bonnie Wong)