Jose Villa Workshop + A Jill La Fleur Workshop

What do you get when you put Jose Villa, Jill La Fleur, Flowerwild and Mar of TEAM Hair and Make Up in a room together? You get this. A crazy beautiful, overflowing with inspiration, pick your jaw up off the floor photoshoot where beauty and style is literally tucked into each and every corner. This is a look at Jose Villa’s latest photography workshop where he pulled in some of his favorite industry peeps to help craft one of the prettiest shoots I think I’ve ever seen. Honestly. So pretty that I couldn’t narrow down the images at all so I have like 15 cake pictures and even more bouquet shots because they were just too beautiful to end up on the cutting room floor. Click here to see even more.

click here to see the full shoot!

I’ve worked with Jose for years and have such respect and high-regard for what he does and have been thrilled to be asked to be a guest speaker at his previous workshops, including this one, over the years. But being invited to style the inspiration shoot for this workshop was such a huge honor and I couldn’t wait to begin the planning of a unique, beautiful design that fit both his style and that of the amazing location, the Figueroa Mountain Farmhouse!

My inspiration started with the idea of combining two very different looks: a soft, romantic anthropology style mixed with a more industrial, masculine Restoration Hardware feel. And working with Kate of Flowerwild was amazing! She and I had so much fun working together to come up with unique ideas to make this juxtaposition work! For the romantic side, we incorporated floral in soft tones of peaches and blushes and silvery sage greens with cut crystal containers, delicate crystal stemware, a hand-made thick crocheted lace runner, billowy pillows and lace runners for the benches (which we tied down with lace ribbon and bells!) and beautiful vintage “found” bottles with antique keys/toppers. The brides had delicate dresses by Claire Pettibone with custom-made hair pieces by Lo Boheme that gave a romantic, vintage feel in a very rustic setting. Mar with Team Hair and Makeup did a beautiful job finishing off their look!

The invitation suite had delicate peach lace details to finish off the look. And the “ruffle” cake on the delicate vintage cake stand was perfect!

For the more industrial side, we incorporated cast concrete containers for some of the floral, gray linens, bells, heavy “reused” marine ropes mixed with the delicate lace fabrics for the Ceremony site, a rusty vintage bed spring for the escort cards (which I added lace to in order to soften it), the great heavy stone place settings and silverware. I love mixing looks and feels at my events and this combination I felt fit the stunning rustic location and the soft, romantic style of Jose’s beautiful photography. The workshop attendees were all so excited to be not only in the presence of Jose, soaking in every little bit of information he had to share, but also to be able to shoot side-by-side with him at such an amazing location and with such lovely details. Being on the guest panel afterwards with such amazing vendors as Joel Serrato, Team Hair & Makeup, Amy of Wedding Chicks, Richard Photo Laband of course, Jose, ended a perfect workshop day! I can’t wait for the next one!! Photographers out there…it’s worth more than you could imagine!

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So speaking of amazing photography workshops, the fabulous Jill La Fleur is hosting one of her very own…and it’s RIGHT around the corner. Jill has pulled together an amazing collection of vendors and experts to host an overnight workshop at the Ojai Valley Inn and Spa, May the 3rd.

Together with some of the industries coolest (including yours truly, ahem), Jill will be conquering all of those much needed topics from Branding, Marketing and Packaging your Business to Getting Published. Jose Villa will be on hand to instruct the class on capturing the details and I’ll be Skype chatting in a live Q & A session!

Spaces are VERY limited so make sure to sign up asap! And make sure to check out Jose’s workshopon the 13th of September!