The Pond House, Erwin, TN: A Bright + Bohemian Summer Wedding Styled Shoot in the Tennessee Mountains

Jul 12

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36° 0' 55'' N 82° 33' 25'' W

Summer is in full swing over here in Northeast Tennessee and I am absolutely loving it! It has me reminiscing back on this beautiful styled shoot that I was able to organize with some of the best wedding vendors here in Johnson City, Tennessee!

Full transparency— last year, I felt myself feeling quite burnt out. It comes and goes in waves and usually when creatives are stressed out or doing things repetitively. To help fight the burnout and increase creativity, photographers will often try to get out of their normal rhythm and will shoot something for themselves or start personal projects. For me, I had never set up my own styled shoot— I had only attended ones organized and created by others. This was definitely a bit out of my comfort zone, but was such a fun experience!

Early last Summer, I decided I’d fill a gap in weddings and decided to try to organize my own styled shoot. Earlier in the year, I had a local Air BnB in Erwin, The Pond House, start following me, so I followed them back! I absolutely loved the photos of their property and reached out to see if they would be interested in hosting micro weddings and they said yes! I reached out to them and asked if we could host a styled shoot at their beautiful little cabin and set a date. From there, I started reaching out to vendor friends of mine to see if we could collaborate together! Immediately, I started sharing my boho vision with Chelsea Blount of Blossom and Bloom, Hannah Dedrick of Blue Willow Bridal, Melissa Baskette of Melissa’s Vintage Details, Rachael Holmes from Petite Sweets, and Whitney Poersch of Invitations by Whitney. I just knew that this crew would bring my boho wedding dreams to life!

Spoiler alert: they did not disappoint!

After discussing ideas back and forth, we settled on a color scheme and a custom arbor! Melissa’s husband custom-crafted the tree arbor from posts that they had in their barn! We then asked Melanie Hensley of Cherished by Melanie if we could borrow her boho backdrop! Once we had those in place, we found models, Lisa and Scotty Baker, a makeup artist, Chetna Patel of Bombshell Beauty by Chetna, a hairstylist, Jessica Brewster of Jessica’s Updos, and jewelry by Lucy Lieu Co from Knoxville, TN! I also asked the amazing Taylor Lewis of Heartstrings Creative if she’d like to join us!

I truly couldn’t have done it without the amazing vendors who volunteered their time and vision to this day!

Big thanks to all of the amazing vendors who came together to collaborate on this beautiful day!