For this shoot, titled An Ode to Old Romance, the team selected vintage gowns from Old Harvest Vintage, based in Austin. Among the picks were a pale 1970s dress with Victorian influences and a black couture gown made in France during the 1980s. Together they wanted to reject the neat idea that bridal fashion should belong to one era, one colour or one fixed version of femininity.

“This shoot was created purely for the love of storytelling and creativity”, photographer Alexus Uchendu of Maka Studios told us. “I was inspired after seeing Old Harvest Vintage’s incredible collection of vintage bridal gowns, many of which date back to the Victorian and Edwardian periods. Rather than creating a traditional bridal editorial, we wanted to document a real experience. Our model is a bride-to-be who is currently searching for her wedding dress and hopes to find ‘the one’ before setting a date for her wedding.”

The dresses were styled with the bride, Maddie’s, own gothic aesthetic mind. The Alice in Wonderland-esque pale blue dress combines a full skirt, ruffled neckline and short puffed sleeves with an ivory corset worn over the top. It is romantic without feeling delicate or overly sweet. More importantly, it shows how a vintage dress can be restyled rather than treated as a museum piece. Layering a corset, changing the jewellery or adding a belt can alter its shape and style while allowing the original garment to remain intact.

The white lace gowns with their high necks, full sleeves and intricate trims were classic Victoriana. Against smoky eyes, dark lipstick, antique jewellery and loose hair, those traditional details almost took on a different, spooky character.

Then came the black dress. Made in France in the 1980s, its fitted bodice, dropped sleeves and vast skirt delivered the kind of drama that many modern black wedding dresses attempt to recreate. A small veiled hat and black flowers finished the look without crowding it. Maddie’s tattoos left visible also pulled the gown firmly into the present. Historic clothing does not require its wearer to disappear into a period costume.

The process of buying a vintage gown requires a slightly different mindset from ordering a new wedding dress. Vintage sizing bears little resemblance to the number currently printed inside your clothes, so measurements are far more useful than labels. Ask for the bust, waist, hips, shoulder width, sleeve length and total length of a dress before travelling or buying online. Compare those figures with a garment that already fits you, rather than measuring your body and assuming the dress will sit in the same way.

This shoot is a visual reminder that you have permission to style vintage bridalwear according to your own life and tastes.