A (Badass) DIY 50’s Engagement Shoot

I fell in love with Pat’s creativity in her wedding journey when I came across her blog the week that we were freshly pressed.   She has impecable style and grace and is all about some DIY projects, including her engagement shoot.  Yes, she DIY’d her own pictures.  Her entry for the Ruffled DIY contest was featured among their favorites as well.

Pat and her (as of yesterday) husband, Stefan hail from Singapore – which Pat so eloquently described as “warm, tropical and just a tiny red dot on the world-wide map” – to share their engagement session.

Pat and Stefan DIY’d their engagement session to save money and to take control of their photos. She said:

Bridal studios here normally include engagement photography, hair and make up services, gown sale/rental and actual day videography/photography in a packaged bundle that usually starts from S$2500, depending on the package you choose. This is not that much, considering you get almost everything settled in one stop, however I grew tired of the usual cliché shots and am very skeptical of some of the photographers’ style here that mimics the popular cutesy style of Taiwan.

At the same time, I have also been dong my research online and saw so many pictures that are so inspiring and beautiful. And I thought to myself, I can do that too! Granted, I’m not a skilled photographer nor do I have the equipment to back me up, I do however have a DSLR camera and a love for experimenting. There was so much I wanted to try and I got so excited that I forgot about the other options and just decided that we would do the shoot ourselves!

Uhm. Pat. You’re a damn skilled photographer. These images are breathtaking, lady.

Pat and Stefan settled on a 50’s theme for their engagement shoot and did a test run using a remote and their SLR camera.  The practice session went marvelously.  The day of the shoot, they brought along a close friend to help so they didn’t have to rely on the remote.

Pat has some big plans for the photos. Some of them were included in their wedding invitations (below) and others hung from tiny trees in their venue. She wanted to use the photos as a conversation piece and hoped the guests would take the photos away as souvenirs or write notes to her and Stefan on the back.

They even recreated this gem of a photo from Alfred Eisenstaedt in their shoot!

Pat’s DIY invitations were one of the first thing I saw on her site and I thought she was brilliantly creative.  She wanted to give her guests something beautiful to remember and also keep it environmentally friendly. Check out her creation.

Congrats to Pat & Stefan yesterday, 01.11.10!  Hope you enjoy her badass DIY engagement session and give her blog a little love.  Munch on this, suckas!