Atlanta: the Get Married shoot

I’ve just gotten back from the taping/photo shoot for Get Married with the first two gowns from my first collection. I can’t believe I was only gone 48 hours. I feel like I’ve been gone a week! I don’t know yet when the show will air, but as soon as I do know, I’ll post it here. Stay tuned.

I’ll try to post the pictures in chronological order so they’ll make a bit of sense. For now, I can’t figure out how to upload pictures other than thumbnails or entire screen shots, but you can click on each picture & it will enlarge. Someone, please, point me to a tutorial on adding pictures to a wordpress entry. So far, what I’ve found isn’t helpful.

The most amazing aspect for me about shoot was the response I got to the dresses. The models were positively giddy when they put them on & I cinched them up, the Get Married people were all very excited about them, and as we walked through the W Hotel staff & partrons alike all turned heads to watch our progress & ask about the dresses. Very cool. Very cool, indeed.

The ivory dress is ‘Josephine’, the premier gown in the Rose Collection. The dress with the green skirt is ‘Rebecca’. The gowns & 2 more, ‘Amelia’ & ‘Caroline’ will be available on my website approximately November. The Rose collection is the first collection of my new line & features the embroidered fabric you see on the gowns below in 6 different colors with endless choices for matching solid colors.

The colors are (in order) Ivory (shown on gowns), Sepia, Sky, Buttercream, Sage, and Claret. The all come with matching solid colors, but you can also pair them with an assortment of other solid colors as well. For instance, the ivory could be placed with a dark ocean green, as shown on the ‘Rebecca’, or it could also be paired with a pale willow green, a blush pink, or even a bright coral or watermelon pink. Each color creates an entirely different look. Options. I’m all about options.

The bride will be able to go to the website, chose her gown from the collection (or mix & match tops & bottoms), chose her colorway, then send in her measurements & have a gown that is custom made to match her unique personality. Other collections will be released over the coming year (or two), each with 4-6 gowns.

These two are from the first try-on the night before the shoot at Kris’s condo. Kris is my go-to Girl Friday. This really wouldn’t have happened without her. Everything from presenting me to her producers to hair-dos. She’s awesome. So is her cute little one eyed cat, Ruth. (Kris is pictured below. She’s the one in the black shirt doing Lauren’s hair. Don’t tell anybody she does hair. She doesn’t want you to know that.)

Here’s shots of the 2 HOURS it took to get the models ready. Who knew it would take that long? Yes, the last one is actually of me with my right hand completely up Lauren’s shirt. We popped a knob on the busk & couldn’t get it to go back in the hole. While I realize the previous sentence sounds more like something out of a porn mag, it really was quite funny. I like this picture as well because you get the close up effect of what a corset can actually do for the “the girls”. My gowns all have fully functional corsets that are actually capable of a small amount of waist reduction. 2 layers of coutil. spiral steel bones. maximum comfort. maximum figure control.

I forgot to take other pictures of Lauren without her jacket on, but you’ll get to see it on the tv show. It’s a totally different look than with the jacket on. I really want this line to be all about options. I think that if my bride is going to be paying the price range that these gowns are, she shouldn’t have to settle with only what’s available off the rack. So within each collection, she will be able to chose the corset style she likes best, chose to wear a demi-shrug, a full coverage jacket, or go without for the full strapless look, chose her favorite skirt silhouette, and have it all made up in the color she likes best. And yes, my gowns are in color. Color is my thing. It’s part of what makes my look “my look”. I’m going to be offering white as a color option, but all my gowns will be presented on the website in color.

While the girls were getting dressed, I popped down to the lobby to shoot interview. Sorry, don’t have pictures of that. There was background noise & every time someone dropped a tray of forks (something that happens more often than one would think in a hotel lobby/dining area) we had to go back a sentence or two & start over.

The “studio” setting, which took the longest to tape, but will probably only end up being maybe one minute of footage. See the shadows behind the girls? Apparently that’s bad. The crew worked long & hard to make them go away. Bad shadows. Be gone.

These are the outdoor shots of the girls walking down the patio & then posed at the end of the shoot. Kristi (the producer) got to yell “that’s a wrap!”, clearly a life long dream of hers. We all have our thing!

After the taping was over, I was completely exhausted. The crew taped 2 more interviews. Obviously they are super human. I needed a nap. I met briefly with Denee & her daughter at the Perimeter Mall to discuss her May ’08 wedding gown, then headed back to the condo to sandblast my camera make-up off & nap for a bit. Laying on Kris’s couch I felt like I could breath for the first time in a couple of months. I’ve been running from one thing to the next for longer than I can think about, finishing up my summer custom bridal season (pics to come) & then getting these two gowns ready for the trip to Atlanta.

To cap the night off I got to meet up for dinner with my friends Joe &  Jeannette.  We go way back to the day. 8th grade. awkward growth spurts. parties with no parents. the geek squad. little brothers. pipe bombs. (o.k. that wasn’t us. but we know who did it. apparently the police still don’t.) the bus. airmail letters. Paul. Sandy. Dan. Chris. New Year’s Eve. When somebody knows that much about your past… dude, you’ve totally got to keep them in your hip pocket. 🙂 Especially when they own the rights to 100’s of pictures of you with embarrassingly BIG (and I’m talking really big) 80’s hair. It was great to catch up after not having seen each other in a few years & quite the relaxing way to wrap up a very intense couple of days.

I’m back & have logistical things to tie up. Like I don’t have tags. Or labels. Or bags. Or boxes. Or a manufacturer. Or know how to put together a press kit. This year is going to be a big learning curve, but I’m up for the task. I feel like all the stars are aligned. This is the right time, the right place. I’ve been preparing for this moment since I sewed my first button on my Mrs. Beasley doll 32 years ago.

Look out brides. You’re about to be wearing Alisa Benay to your wedding!