Coraline Inspired Wedding Styled Shoot - Behind the Scene

Coraline - Stop-motion movie. Story by Neil Gaiman — Image source: http://www.fanpop.com/

It must be my evil Gemini side surfacing, but I have a thing for mystical, fantasy, and a little dark stories with a cheery ending and a good moral lesson. Coraline is one of those books that I fell in love with, and yes, the stop-motion movie is a favorite, too. I’m inspired by the story and movie that I produced a styled photo shoot around the Coraline theme. The pretty photos are being submitted to various wedding blogs, but I’d love to share with you the behind the scenes and what and who was involved. I’m so excited the OffBeatBride.com has picked up our pretty styled shoot and will feature it on their site in October!!!

Venue:
Pink Palace Apartment. I searched high and low for a Victorian building as our backdrop and finally found one in San Gabriel Valley (North East of Los Angeles)

The Pinney House - Sierra Madre, CA — The Pinney House – Sierra Madre, CA

Color Scheme:
I love to use Design-Seeds to find color palettes for my clients and the events I design. For Coraline, I decided on a rich jewel toned color scheme similar to Mineral Sparkle. The crinkled linens from ClothConnection is perfect with just a touch of shimmer.

purple, navy, blue color scheme — Mineral Sparkle Color Palette – Image source from Design-Seeds.com

ClothConnection Linen Swatches and Victorian Jeweled Pin

Cake & Desserts
I wanted to recreate the chocolate cake with pink frosting like in the movie, but that just doesn’t seem elegant enough for a wedding. We were inspired by this fondant sugar flower cake from Colin Cowie Weddings.

Coraline Movie Chocolate Cake with Pink Frosting — Image source: http://blog.al.com/

Sugar flower 3 tier wedding cake — Image source: http://www.colincowieweddings.com/

Florals:
I wanted to use dark and rich color flower to make them pop. Exotic blooms and shaped that’s similar to Coraline’s garden in the “other” world.

Coraline Garden Flower Scene Screengrab — Image source: http://beccabluepicked.blogspot.com/

Stationery

My original idea was to have the invitation in a wooden box similar to the “other mother’s” sewing box, and incorporate real buttons into the design.

Coraline - Button for your eyes — Image source: http://makezine.com/

It was a smaller scale styled shoot but filled with lots of details such as the various floral setup, props, cake and dessert spread, place setting, and stationery.