Editorial Shoot at the Château de Nainville-les-Roches

Hi there,

A few months ago, I participated in an editorial shoot at the Château de Nainville-les-Roches. In this article, I'm going to quickly explain what an editorial shoot is in the wedding world, and give you a glimpse into the beautiful work that was accomplished on this one!

What is an editorial shoot in the wedding world?

An editorial shoot is a photoshoot that aims to stage key moments of a wedding in order to create content that vendors can use for their communication. It’s a way to showcase one’s work.

The Purpose of an Editorial Shoot

For vendors

An editorial shoot for wedding vendors is an opportunity to design a different setup from what they might do at a 'real' event, and to have more time to highlight each person's work. The photographer literally spends the entire day photographing the work of the participants: the overall staging, floral art, design, the couple's outfits, jewelry, the reception venue, and more.

Unlike a 'real' wedding, where the couple's expectations obviously take precedence over everything else, a shoot is a chance to choose every detail and go in any artistic direction, depending on the needs and desires of the participants. It's also an opportunity to showcase more refined content, for example, as part of a move upmarket.

For Future Couples

Thanks to this type of shoot, you get access to the vendors' "best work." It’s a chance to see what they are capable of, and also to discover particularly rich and elaborate setups. It's a great way to get ideas, or to better analyze what you like and don't like in each setup you'll discover through editorial shoots. Many are published on specialized blogs, so there's something for everyone!

Be careful, however, as an editorial shoot is not a real wedding. If you are a future couple, it’s important to keep that in mind and not fall into a few traps.

Future Couples, Be Careful with Editorials

It's Not Always Realistic

An editorial shoot is the Disneyland for wedding vendors. It's a chance to think big. The organization (and publication) of this type of shoot meets several criteria and standards that you will find on almost every editorial of this kind: a couple, a staged secular ceremony, a table setting, a wedding cake display, etc.

Vendors often use editorial shoots to invest money in their communication. The staging presented in editorial shoots is therefore not necessarily representative of what you can see at their events.

It's Not (Exactly) the Same Work

I think it's important to have some perspective on the work shown in editorial shoots when you are looking for a wedding vendor, because for some, the working conditions and the work presented are not necessarily reproducible at a real wedding:

• The floral designer only has one table to prepare for a shoot. They can dedicate all the time they want to it, which is not the case at a wedding. Moreover, designers generally take the opportunity to propose a particularly opulent setup in order to highlight their expertise. These decorations are often expensive, and when multiplied by the number of tables you would need for a wedding, they can amount to a significant budget. Couples sometimes underestimate the budget required for certain setups they see in editorial shoots.

  
  

• The photographer, during a shoot, works in ideal conditions: they have a schedule that has been designed to give them time to devote to each scene, and a setting that has been chosen to be sublimated by the images, which therefore provides controlled lighting conditions.

  
  

• The couple who embodies the bride and groom is usually a couple who participates in photoshoots in a professional or semi-professional capacity. In other words, they are models. They know how to pose naturally and use their skills for the shoot, just like any other vendor. At a wedding, the result of the couple's photo session depends to a very large extent on the photographer and their ability to guide a couple who doesn't know how to pose. At a shoot, their job is made easier by the skills the couple already has. Knowing how to pose models who aren't used to it is, in my opinion, one of the most important skills for a wedding photographer, and it's not during an editorial shoot that this skill is most needed.

An editorial shoot should not be your only basis for evaluating a wedding vendor's work. This is a humbly personal point of view that I'm sharing with you, but in my opinion, you should always ask the vendors you contact to show you their work under real wedding conditions, because editorial shoots are a world apart in the wedding industry. Their outcome shows you what is possible for a vendor to do, not necessarily what that vendor typically does at a real event.

Our Editorial Shoot at Nainville-les-Roches

The conductor of this beautiful project was my friend Cassandra, who is a wedding planner. She envisioned the setup with Elise, whose magical fingers created the magnificent floral decoration for the shoot. My own contribution to the entire project consisted of saying "Wow, I love that!" to pretty much every one of their proposals.

I'm sharing a few images with you from this beautiful shoot, which came to life thanks to these two talented professionals who brought us along on the adventure! For my part, I distinguished myself by eating with delight about 653 croissants throughout the day—I later found out I was pregnant, so I did indeed eat my weight in puff pastry, but I had a good excuse. Did I feel obligated to explain to the shoot's vendors that I had raided the buffet for a good reason? Absolutely. So, it was Baby #3's first gig!

Here's the list of talented service providers who participated in this wonderful day:

Venue : @chateau_nainville_les_roches

Photography : @manon.douard.photographie

Floral design : @naturebyelys

Wedding planning : @cassandra_weddingplanner

Wedding design : @justeuneevidence

Videography : @tuan.nguyen.films

Couple : @laragratiot et @william_frnds

Dress : @aksel.wedding.dress

Costume : @maison_siake

Stationery : @encresetnuances

Hair & make up artist : @iroazbeaute

Shoes : @bellabelleshoes

Jewelry : @sohelo_bijouxmariage

Wedding content creating : @sh_signature_

Cake design : @planete.sucree

Wedding officiant : @theparisofficiant

Musicians : @violinist_paris_

Locations : @evenement_objet

You can find more information about my services on my website, along with some excerpts from wedding galleries, if you would like to see more of my work.

See you soon!

Manon