A Quintessentially British (slightly) Royal Tea Party

April 26, 2011

The royal wedding is kind of a big deal…people worldwide are gearing up for the ‘show’ and even London has gone all patriotic for once. Union Jack flags hang above Regent St and pretty much every shop window is littered with red, white and blue tat. I however, am not so excited about the whole thing. I’m not averse to two people falling in love and getting married…far from it in fact. I’m more than a little bit thrilled that William and Kate are getting married. I love marriage and I couldn’t be happier for them!

However it’s the media charade that surrounds the whole thing that kills me…and the fact that, as someone that works in the wedding industry, this is supposed to be some ‘once in a lifetime experience’ for me…and seriously, if you’d been sent as many irrelevant royal wedding-related press released as I have, you’d be pretty over it too. Yaaaawn. Most un-Rock n Roll wedding ever. Fact.

As you can well imagine, since the announcement of the wedding I’ve been sent a whole host of snooze-inducing royal wedding inspired photo shoots. None of which I’ve really given the time of day. However this shoot by photographer Adam of  Viva Wedding Photography really stood out to me. Mmm… tasty tea and scones and vintage styling – all with a hint of quintessential Englishness but without screaming “Check me out I’m a royal wedding photo shoot!”

I approve.

“I always had an idea for a decadent / last supper type of shoot,” photographer Adam told me. “So Maryanne of Jam and Tea and I arranged a venue / props / models etc and pulled it all together. The original idea was to just get the one final image with lots of impact of all the girls having a tea party, with a slight hint of coronation royal connection. However the way we built the set up, you couldn’t really see the china in detail and the original first world war union jack in the back ground was obscured, not that we wanted it to prominent.”

“I always like to get a bit more out of my photo shoots, whether it is a proper shoot or just the bride and groom on their wedding day. So I always try and shoot some separate portrait shots at my shoots. In this case we used the vintage union jack as a background, and shot each model in slightly different dress (all clothes are the models own, but some of them were so beautiful, including a lovely 1930s french silk top) each holding a different original coronation cup.”

And there you have it, my mini-nod towards the Royal wedding. I am genuinely thrilled for William & Kate and I really do hope that they have the most special day and the happiest life together. I’m not a completely cold hearted b****.

And although I may have a few more ‘Rule Britannia’ inspired shoots coming up on the blog this week, be rest assured that I’ve only chosen to feature the most kick ass of the bunch…and the ones with only an insy bitsy hint of royal wedding-ness!

Thanks to Adam for sharing his shoot with us today…I hope you don’t mind my slightly sarcastic write up! I really do love this shoot.

Photography Credit: Viva Wedding Photography
Styling: Maryanne Jolliffe of Jam and Tea