Charlottesville Bridal Boudoir

Act I - Sweet and Airy Bridal Boudoir

The sweet scent of her flower crown was as subtle as the sheer tulle of her grandmother's veil, preserved from the 70's.

Jenna contacted me because she wanted to have bridal boudoir photos done of herself at this time in her life to look back on later when she's older.  It just so happens that her session doubles as a wedding gift for her fiancé that's going to blow his mind and make him fall in love with her all over again!  I love that in her initial email she said the photos were for her first.  While I'm all about giving boudoir photos as a gift to a lover, I'm just as much all about having this experience for yourself!  Jenna planned to have her trial flower crown made by her florist Mia at Root Floral Design) so that it would be done for her boudoir session (this works if you're having a trial bouquet made as well).  I'm SO glad she had forethought to do so because I feel like it really pulled together her bridal look and brought out the bohemian-hippie aspect of her personality.  She wore a cathedral length veil that her grandmother wore in the 70's that had the most beautiful scalloped lace designs!

Act II - The Dark Side

For the second part of her shoot, Jenna wanted to show off her edgier side in contrast to her more natural and free-spirited side.  We used contrast and shadows to add to the mystery and give her photos a seductive film noir look and suggestive posing to make the photos tastefully erotic.

What I love most about this session was that Jenna wanted to show off two different sides of her personality; natural and edgy.  A lot of times we feel like we need to be one type of person consistently and don't give ourselves permissions to have more variety in our personalities for fear of feeling like a fake, or not knowing who you really are.  The truth is, most people have very different aspects of their personality that contrast each other.  Let's embrace our differences within ourselves!

I think we did a pretty good job here showing the two sides of Jenna's personality, what do you think?  If you did a boudoir shoot what contrasting aspects of your personality would you want to show off?  Tell me in the comments below!

(Hair by Chey Esposito Pertuit and makeup by Tina at Verde Beauty)