What Pinterest Doesn't Tell You: The Saga of Planning & Excecuting my 1st Styled Shoot

Pinterest.
Whether you love it, hate it, or have a love/hate relationship with it, you've definitely heard of it.  
Every one of us has had someone tell them all about about a pose, party, or recipe they saw on Pinterest.
What the average "Pinner" rarely considers, though, is what goes in to making each of those photographs, recipes, or parties come to fruition.   Browsing Pinterest, you're shown only the beautiful, final product with no information about the late nights, last minute store runs, sweat, and (sometimes) tears that went into creating that one perfect shot that was "pin" worthy.

When I decided to take the leap and organize my own styled shoot, I decided it'd be fun to document what all had to happen to bring it to pass.  So, I've kept notes, and taken pictures over the past 2 months while I dreamed, planned, ordered outfits, coordinated with other vendors, etc, etc, etc in order to share with YOU what it takes to create a "pin" worthy photograph.

There are three things that you do first when planning a styled shoot - pick a publication, choose a theme, and find vendors to partner with.  Choosing the vendors I wanted to partner with was easy for me as I knew I wanted Cakes and More by Alicia to design and create the smash cake and I wanted to work with LacyBug Designs not only for her beautiful headbands, but also because I thought her daughter, Alexis, would make an adorable model.

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The saga begins...
Location: 
Alicia, Lacy, and myself pretty quickly agreed upon colors, style, and what each of us would bring to the table.  After that, I had to figure out where to have the shoot.  Originally we had a great location in mind, but that very quickly fell through.  This is where the real saga begins - the location plan B ended up as my living room!  The night before the shoot, my husband and I cleaned the main parts of our house, took photos off the walls, and moved furniture in order to clear out a big, open space in our living room.  Next, I set up my backdrop stand, different backgrounds, light stands and lights, and ran extension cords everywhere.  On the plus side, it was kind of nice to not have to schlep my gear any farther than my living room.  On the negative side, it definitely disrupted ours and our infant's life for about 24 hours.

What my work-space looked like.

What my living room actually looked like.

Date:  
The 2nd issue to befall us had to do with the date of the shoot itself.  Alicia, Lacy, and I had agreed on a date at least a month in advance.  We're all moms and small business owners, so coordinating calendars isn't always the easiest.  Well, real life stepped in, my grandfather passed away, and his memorial service was set for the very day we'd scheduled our shoot.  Alicia and Lacy were gracious enough to let me push the shoot back a week enabling me to go home and be with my family.  
The main issue to come from this was that I ended up out of town for almost the entire week before the shoot only to get home ~16 hours before the session was scheduled.
Equipment, Decor, and Accessories:
As I said above, I really had NO time to test equipment or figure out exact lighting needs until the evening before the shoot.  You can imagine my surprise and instant anger to discover at 8 o'clock at night that one of my 2 lights was not longer working.  Luckily, my wonderful husband was able to run out 1st thing Monday morning and get me another light kit.  (And luckily for the company I bought my original lights from, they're replacing the defective light free of charge.)
Alas, I was not the only one to have unexpected problems during prep.  A bumpy drive caused the icing "flowers" to slide on the cake, and our bored model broke the bubble gum necklace her mother had stayed up late making the night before.

The offending flowers had to be removed and re-piped.

Last minute touch up.

The Shoot Itself:
After the cake was repaired, the new lighting was purchased and set-up, and the broken necklace pieces were picked up, the shoot went well.  Of course, as with any shoot, there's always the human element.  And, when the shoot is centered around a 1 year old - the human element can be very unpredictable.

Babies sometimes run away.

They are easily distracted - even by their own feet.

Sometimes they like to get SUPER close to the camera.

Babies require frequent breaks ... for many reasons.

Wardrobe changes and fixes are done as quickly as possible.

And when they're done, they're DONE!

But once you see that perfect image, you realize it was worth every hiccup and stressful moment! 

Thank you again to Alicia with Cakes and More by Alicia and Lacy with Lacybug Designs for agreeing to work with me, your willingness to go along with the flow (even when things didn't go as planned), your awesome physical contributions to the shoot, and your listening ears!
You can follow Cakes and More by Alicia on Facebook here and on Instagram @cakesandmorebyalicia
and follow Lacybug Designs on Facebook here and on Instagram & Twitter @lacybugdesigns