I’ve worked with the Brittanie Raquel Events team a lot over the past year…mostly in part to them being some of my best friends, in life and in the industry. We’ve had a bunch of different shoots and my working relationship with them is what I dream of with all of my clients – to do the work on the front end to deeply understand their business so when photo needs arise, we can move quickly and efficiently…AND all of the images will have a specific purpose!

For this post, we’ll be diving deep into their largest shoot of the year – a full day brand shoot at The Oceanic. 

Part of the planning process for brand shoots is thorough research.

This includes a very in-depth questionnaire to get the perspective of the business owner and my own audit of their online presence (website, social media, etc.). I love finding the areas where things aren’t quite clicking, where there are holes to be filled, or where the message is great and a new image would only enhance.

From there I create storylines to be presented and worked through on our pre-shoot call. As we go through the storylines and messages for each we’re able to refine the shot lists to make sure we’re only creating images that will serve a purpose.

If you don’t do this, you’ll just end up with a gallery of images you don’t know how to caption! 

For Brittanie Raquel Events, we also talked through images that simply needed updating from our previous shoots and if they had any promotional campaigns coming up. 

Storyline 1: “Making your vision come to life”

Part of a wedding planner and coordinator’s job is to take the vision a couple has for their wedding day and make it come to life – whether that’s arranging your family heirlooms and making sure they are returned safely at the end of the night or helping design a floral arrangement that wow’s guests upon arrival. 

The BRE team serves couples at all stages of the wedding planning process and can create your vision from start to finish. 

For these messages, we created images that showed the process from start to finish, including Brittanie and Kinsey in their set-up outfits, unboxing decor, comparing the final arrangement to the mood board inspiration, processing flowers and building floral arrangements, working as a team with assistants, etc. 

Storyline 2: “Planning and Design”

While the execution of the wedding day is what most people see (and was covered in our first storyline), none of that can happen smoothly without the planning, organization, and design months before. 

Our core message is the BRE team works with all of their couples to budget, curate the best vendor team, and turn their vision into a reality.

I love curating these images because they are much more conceptual in nature. Most of Brittanie and Kinsey’s work is done digitally, with client meetings over zoom or the phone, mood boards created in Canva, and communication via email. But that doesn’t mean we can’t portray the concepts of what they’re doing in a more fun, visual way. 

There is a balance with brand images of showing the reality of the process and also trying to get a specific message across. I believe all brand shoots should have a mix!

Storyline 3: “Wilmington-Obsessed”

One thing that Brittanie has prioritized as she’s built her business is creating connections within her community. I had never really thought about it, but that’s a major component of being a wedding planner! They have to know of and have relationships with so many different people so they can curate the perfect vendor team for each client. 

We always make sure to have some element of community within their shoots, whether it’s using a local venue or highlighting a Wilmington-based vendor. This shoot featured Azalea Limos’ vintage Cadillac driving through the streets of Wrightsville Beach (also serves as fun “out of office” photos!), spicy margaritas on the Oceanic Pier bar, and walking around the Cargo District downtown. 

Last but not least…“Promotional Content”

While the storylines take the center stage at brand shoots because they help ensure our photos have purpose, it’s not lost on me that sometimes we just need a good photo of the team. Every brand shoot does include your much-needed headshots in different outfits and locations so you have something that will work for different use cases.

Brand shoots are more than just getting updated headshots. 

Brittanie and her team always do such a good job of getting maximum use out of their galleries by featuring images on their holiday cards, thank you notes, client welcome gifts, across the website, in blog posts, and of course on Instagram.

I can’t wait to go into this next year and continue helping them find the gaps where they don’t have anything to visually represent their key messages and stories. Every time we have a shoot we get better at knowing how they will actually use the photos and as a result, create more purposeful images.

Follow along with The Brittanie Raquel Events Team here: Website | Instagram

Venue: @oceanic_dining⁠
Photography: @dakotaherseyphotography ⁠
Videography: @firstfive.media⁠
Speciality Rentals: @marthamydearrentals⁠
Rentals: @partysuppliersandrentals⁠
Transportation: @azalealimousine⁠
Hair & Makeup: @reignbeautync