As you know modettes I am a huge fan of engagement portraits and this playful portrait from Xsight Photography really is one of a kind! Meet Shaun and Rushenka the stars of this colourful shoot.
The proposal…
Shaun whisked me away on a trip away to Hepburn Springs, Daylesford where we stayed in a gorgeous little villa. He decorated the villa with fairy lights (I’m a sucker for fairy lights), we cooked dinner together and afterwards, he sat me down on the bed to watch a surprise video he had made for me. He had put together a slideshow of all our photos of us together from our travels to nights out with family and friends, but had edited the photos to be black and white leaving only me in colour in each! As I watched glassy eyed, (who am I kidding, the water works were in full swing) Shaun accidentally spilt his drink on the floor beside the bed and was kneeling on the floor behind me quickly trying to clean up the mess. The video ended with the words ‘will you marry me?’ and as I turned around to face him, he was already on bended knee with a ring in his hand! I was so surprised and actually asked him if he was joking, but assured me he was serious and that sparkling ring quickly convinced me he wasn’t kidding! Shaun tells me the spilling of the drink was never actually part of the plan, but just happened to work out in his favour! It was perfect!
The idea…
We’re not really the serious type at the best of times and weren’t keen on posing for our engagement shoot, so I really wanted to come up with something fun and different to make sure we were both comfortable and we would get the most out of our photos! I did a bit of research and decided throwing paint at each other was the perfect solution! Shaun loved the idea (he definitely dreaded the idea of posing for a photo shoot) and even though Xsight are renowned for their glamour shots, I put the idea to our photographer Nick. I had previously warned him that we wanted to have fun in our wedding shoot (which we certainly did!), but I don’t think he quite expected this for our engagement shoot.”¨
The experience…
Shaun and I were both so excited! “¨We started off in the studio and took a few serious shots, before trying to figure out exactly how this was going to work. The photographer had never really done anything like this before, so none of us knew quite what to expect, but we had so much fun with it! I had bought powdered paint, so the plan was to throw that at each other but we quickly decided it would be a better idea to take this outdoors. We found a great spot outside against a coloured wall and began throwing the powdered paint at each other. It didn’t take long for our hair to turn bright green and our clothes to resemble an 80’s hyper colour t-shirt, until our photographer Nick decided to add water to the paint and began throwing that at us. It was so much fun and we couldn’t stop laughing the whole time! We had a ball! We’re so happy with how the photos turned out.”¨
Everything about this shoot is fun and youthful. I like to think of their children looking at these pictures and thinking ‘Wow Mum and Dad were so crazy back then!’ This shoot does everything an engagement shoot is meant to do – capture a moment, provide an alternative to formal wedding pictures and give the couple an enjoyable experience!
Thanks to Rushenka, Shaun and Xsight Photography for sharing with us!
Would you consider something fun and messy for your engagement shoot? Drop by our Facebook and share your thoughts.
Isabel 🙂