Venice Boudoir + Anniversary Shoot
Nearly a year ago, we fell in love with this beautiful couple and their California soiree full of rustic elegance. And today, we get to fall in love all over again with their sexy, yet sweet and oh-so-elegantly captured images from Matthew Ree of their first year anniversary sesh in Venice. I'm not even married yet and I'm already planning our year one festivities—one peek at these snaps and you'll see why.
From the Mrs...We decided to celebrate our first wedding anniversary with a trip to Italy—a country that neither one of us had ever been to but always wanted to visit. We planned on starting out in Rome, then taking the train north to Florence, and ending up in Venice. While planning our trip, I browsed online through various photo galleries—first of sites to visit, and then somehow ended up perusing SMP’s engagement and styled shoots in Italy. We decided that having pictures as a souvenir/keepsake would be such a wonderful anniversary gift to ourselves. On our last trip abroad, there weren’t very many photos of us, as I held the camera most of the time and snapped away. This time, I was determined to have photos to share and to keep as memories. And so, my search for a photographer began. I went through each and every single one of SMP’s features in Italy and SMP’s Little Black Book, researched each photographer, and contacted many of them. It was like wedding planning all over again! At the end of this crazy search, Matthew Ree seemed to be the best fit for us—I loved his photography, and his personality (over our email exchanges) really attracted me. We started discussing outfits, settings, style, and what I envisioned for the perfect shoot. I was psyched that I’d get to wear my Tadashi dress; I didn’t get a chance to wear it on my wedding day, since I loved my actual wedding gown so much and kept it on all night. See it here! The next task was to select whether to shoot in Florence or Venice, which was a difficult decision as we had never been to either place. We ended up choosing Venice, since we thought that the scenery would be so unique.
It was raining from the moment we got off the train in Venice, so much so that San Marco Square (and many other places) were flooded for part of the morning, with mostly grey skies, when the rain would temporarily stop. This put a bit of a damper on our plan for taking pictures. Our photographer, Matthew, was so nice and flexible; we started out with a boudoir shoot on the first day—which was actually lots of fun!—and broke out the second day with more “formal” pictures in the morning, and casual ones in the afternoon. One of the silliest parts of the day was when we were taking photos in San Marco Square, all dressed up. There were so many random people (tourists) who came closer up and started taking pictures of us and congratulated us! They probably thought that we had just gotten married!
Florence and Venice are two of the most romantic cities I’ve ever visited. The architecture is truly mesmerizing and out of this world! There are so many different places, lovely bridges to cross, and tiny streets to get lost in. Each turn revealed another beautiful building façade with new window shapes or soft colors, all against the bluish green canal. It looked like a made up movie set, or like it came straight out of a painting. Unfortunately, with shortened daylight time and weather constraints, we couldn’t possibly capture all of Venice’s beauty. However, we are so happy with how the pictures turned out. The color palette and backdrop are simply gorgeous. And I bet that no one can tell that we were actually shivering in the freezing December cold!! Our only regret is that we didn’t have Matthew follow us along throughout Italy to document all of our fun moments in Rome and Florence! One of my favorite pictures is the one of us on one of those little bridges, with the picturesque and serene reflection over the water. This really was a magical experience that was dreamily and beautifully captured through Matthew’s lens.
It was raining from the moment we got off the train in Venice, so much so that San Marco Square (and many other places) were flooded for part of the morning, with mostly grey skies, when the rain would temporarily stop. This put a bit of a damper on our plan for taking pictures. Our photographer, Matthew, was so nice and flexible; we started out with a boudoir shoot on the first day—which was actually lots of fun!—and broke out the second day with more “formal” pictures in the morning, and casual ones in the afternoon. One of the silliest parts of the day was when we were taking photos in San Marco Square, all dressed up. There were so many random people (tourists) who came closer up and started taking pictures of us and congratulated us! They probably thought that we had just gotten married!
Florence and Venice are two of the most romantic cities I’ve ever visited. The architecture is truly mesmerizing and out of this world! There are so many different places, lovely bridges to cross, and tiny streets to get lost in. Each turn revealed another beautiful building façade with new window shapes or soft colors, all against the bluish green canal. It looked like a made up movie set, or like it came straight out of a painting. Unfortunately, with shortened daylight time and weather constraints, we couldn’t possibly capture all of Venice’s beauty. However, we are so happy with how the pictures turned out. The color palette and backdrop are simply gorgeous. And I bet that no one can tell that we were actually shivering in the freezing December cold!! Our only regret is that we didn’t have Matthew follow us along throughout Italy to document all of our fun moments in Rome and Florence! One of my favorite pictures is the one of us on one of those little bridges, with the picturesque and serene reflection over the water. This really was a magical experience that was dreamily and beautifully captured through Matthew’s lens.