Up In The Air

So I recruited Sarah again (check out her website here!) for a collaborative photoshoot! Hizzah! I've had this shoot planned pretty much ever since I received this dress from Modcloth last week, I was just waiting for the right weather to shoot in. Because this dress has a hot air balloon print on it, I decided I wanted to take pictures with a balloon bouquet! It was actually supposed to rain on Wednesday when I planned to do the shoot, but it ended up holding off until that night and we had really great weather. I really like the way these pictures came out.

Dress: Nishe via Modcloth//Tights: Hanes//Shoes: Payless

One thing I love about this dress (besides the whole hot air balloon thing) is the collar. It looks like two little clouds, and it just goes so perfectly with the theme of the dress.

Now, you'd think that a balloon bouquet is something that should be fairly simple to achieve. But for me, it ended up being somewhat complicated due to a brain fart moment on my part. Somehow my brain forgot that balloons require helium to float, so I bought a pack of 25 balloons to blow up myself. Sarah and I then tried, and I repeat, tried to blow up the balloons, but we could not do it. That's right, we both have dainty little lady lungs that fail at blowing up even the tiniest of balloons. So then it was off to the party store where they filled some balloons with helium, tied them on strings and clipped them together in a neat little bouquet for me.

Part two of the crazy balloon debacle was driving around with them. I don't know if you know how terrifying it is to not see out the back windows of your car when you're trying to switch lanes, but it's pretty awful. Good thing I had Sarah as my wing...lady-man? The balloons clearly wanted to be a part of the fun in the front seats because they kept bumping into our heads and one even somehow got oddly attached to my hair.

Once we made it back to Sarah's house, she started doing my make-up! I wanted something simple, but with a bright, bold lip. We decided to mix a pinkish coral shade with a more orangey shade. The resulting color ended up matching the color of my dress almost perfectly. I feel like this shoot was meant to be because everything kept falling right into place! :)

Once the make-up was all set, we headed out to the beach to shoot. I knew I wanted to be on the beach for this shoot so that I could have a nice open sky as a backdrop for the bright colors of the balloons and dress. I also thought the lighthouse at this beach would look really pretty in the pictures instead of just having a plain sandy landscape. Luckily, the sun had also started to come out as we were getting ready to go, so we had good lighting too!

[The balloon decided to punch me in the face, apparently.]

I showed Sarah how to use my camera and I swear she must be a natural because she took really amazing shots! While we were shooting, we received a few stares from other beach-goers and one guy even asked "What's with the balloons?" to which we just responded "Just takin' pictures!". His dog shook water off near me and got me wet. I was semi-upset about it since I thought the water was dirty and would stain my white tights and brand new dress, but it was fine.

I had so much fun doing this shoot. You know when you feel so good about what you're wearing, where you are, who you're with, and the concept of the shoot in general that you just know it's gonna be good? Well that's what happened. I was just so giddy to have a balloon bouquet on the beach in a new pretty dress with one of my best friends! I've always liked how pretty balloons (both regular and hot air) look in the air and in photographs and I've always wanted to do a shoot with them, so I'm glad I finally got to. And when we were done, we celebrated our success with a cupcake picnic.

At the cupcake place, I had mentioned that it was Sarah's first time and the woman who works there was saying how they should have balloons fall on people when it's their first time in the shop. Sarah and I kind of looked at each other with the same thought of "Funny thing, because we happen to have balloons in the car"...haha. I ended up getting an anginette cupcake and a white chocolate chip cheesecake cupcake. My favorite of the two was definitely the anginette. Come on...a cookie in cupcake form? It was like Christmas all over again...but with cupcakes.

We still had the balloons with us when we drove to the park. We left them in the car though while we ventured out with a blanket to sit on and enjoy our cupcakes. I'm so happy the weather is finally nice enough to be able to comfortably sit on a blanket in the park without a coat on and enjoy the warmth (and cupcakes). It was definitely one of the best days I've had in a while, and I can't wait to do more springtime shoots! :)