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*** Special note: If you’ve found yourself here! YAY!! This is one of our all-time favorite blog posts, but as we’ve grown and changed over the years so has our styling kit, so we’ve done an update post with tons of great fresh content and items in our styling kit that you can find here

 

When we first started shooting weddings we wondered how the photographers we were following got such detail-rich photos. They seemed to have clients with fancy ribbons, the perfect dress hanger, and so many other special touches. We longed for images with these many details! It just wasn’t happening though, even with our best encouragement to our brides. Then one day we learned about a styling kit.

So, we researched what made a good styling kit & we needed. Over time we’ve taken our kit from just a couple of items to a fully developed kit. This can include all sorts of items that are meant to give your clients an elevated wedding experience for your couples! Not just that, but by bringing these with you you’ll elevate the quality of your images too.

Wedding Photographers in Birmingham, Alabama Katie & Alec Photography - What's In Our Styling Kit

Today we wanted to share with you just a little sneak peek into what our personal styling kit looks like! Without fail we always bring a few must-have items that can help kick-start your styling kit: cute hangers, dental wax, and a clamp.

We’ve also got a few “luxury” items we’ve added to our kit over time that we love having but don’t have to have: Mrs. Boxes, silk ribbons, cheesecloth, and vintage stamps. Sometimes we’ll get playful with other items at weddings like extra flowers, pieces of leftover lace, and other fun details that are unique to that wedding and free to use!

Wedding Photographers in Birmingham, Alabama Katie & Alec Photography - What's In Our Styling Kit

For Her Dress

A bride’s dress is such an important piece of any wedding day. Most of the time our brides have spent a significant amount of time, emotion, and money picking the perfect dress! We believe that this means we should put as much care into getting amazing shots of it. That’s why we bring a couple of cute hanger options and clamps to every wedding. 

The hangers allow us to provide nice, higher-end-looking options for dress shots in case our brides forgot to bring along one of their own. This helps us keep our shots looking nice & keeps us from having to use cheap plastic hangers that most dress shops use! We actually keep enough to have 10 of the same for bridesmaid dresses too.

The clamps come in handy by allowing us to flatter the waistline of the dress for our brides! When a wedding dress is laid flat it makes it appear much wider than our bride actually is. We simply clamp the dress from behind (just a few inches) so it looks as tiny as it will on our bride. This simple tip can make our brides feel more beautiful and add value to our images.

Wedding Photographers in Birmingham, Alabama Katie & Alec Photography - What's In Our Styling Kit

For the Rings

Since Katie is completely obsessed with ring shots, and our brides expect the best from us, we put a lot of effort into these! Like we mentioned before, we will sometimes pull in details from the wedding like extra flowers, the bride’s bouquet, or other personal effects. Those are perfect for layering or setting rings on top of.

Often, we don’t have access to these so we decided to invest in the Mrs. Box styling set! It’s definitely pricey (about $300 for 5 luxury vintage velvet boxes), but we use them ALL the time. Almost every time we pull them out our brides lose it and get so excited! We chose to get 10 different colors that would allow us to offer our brides the option to choose which color we use.

Wedding Photographers in Birmingham, Alabama Katie & Alec Photography - What's In Our Styling Kit

For the Overall Details

When we spend time shooting a couple’s details, we focus on everything from their jewelry to their invitations. Our goal is always to capture as many details as we can to honor the time our couples spent picking these details. Sometimes when we get all the details together, we could use a little something extra to make the images stand out.

Our favorite ways to do this are by either popping into the background ribbon, extra flowers (just ask the florist for any leftovers), or even some vintage stamps. For stamps, you can get a bag of them off Etsy for like $4. These small items can take the quality of an image and add the luxury touch we’re looking for without detracting from the details.

Wedding Photographers in Birmingham, Alabama Katie & Alec Photography - What's In Our Styling Kit Styling kit

Something we always keep in the car is styling boards we’ve created. We keep them neutral colors so they’ll work with any given color scheme. It gives us a clean, simple background to use for our images when we don’t have a flattering background like cute tiled floors or a soft-colored bridesmaids dress. We love them & they cost less than $20 to make! Just email us if you want the steps 🙂

We’re constantly looking to expand our kit and create a better wedding experience for our couples! No matter where you start in creating your kit, just know it’s a process. We hope these ideas help you to either start your own kit or expand yours to help your own business flourish! 

Here’s to so many beautiful weddings ahead!

K&A

 

If you liked this post check out our tips on how to get phenomenal detail shots & how to get show-stopping ring shots!

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