You may remember my darling couple Leanne and John from their downtown Winter Park wedding at the Winter Park Farmer’s Market last year. The two reached out to me about doing a styled shoot anniversary session that had a rustic feel to match their wedding day, but incorporate more of the beautiful outdoors Florida has to offer. I jumped for joy when I heard from Leanne and was so excited to be able to work with her and John again.
When learning about the props and DIY crafts Leanne was in the process of making, along with the type of location she was looking for, I just knew that Bramble Tree Estate was the perfect location! Located in Sorrento, Florida the massive countryside estate was originally built as an equestrian estate with an eight stall horse barn. Currently home to beautiful weddings, the venue offers a 3,000 square foot pavilion, numerous courtyards, and manicured fields filled with vegetable gardens and wild flowers. Being my first time at Bramble Tree, I reached out to Jennifer Johnson who is the Director of Operations to help with planning my couple’s styled shoot. She was so incredible and warm in welcoming us and helping plan out the session!
When the big day came for our styled shoot, my sweethearts met me out at Bramble Tree in the back of the main home to set up our pastel pink and blue picnic. While I love absolutely all of the details from the session, my favorites were a polka dot pink cake from the Publix cakery and mason jar glasses that Leanne wrapped with lace and twine.
It is so interesting to be able to follow up with a couple after their wedding one year later. When chatting with Leanne about what her and John have learned in their first year of marriage, I asked her what was the best advice she had been given for having a happy and healthy marriage, which she responded was to “not to take each other for granted and always keep laughing together.” Seriously I could not agree more! I also had to ask while reminiscing on her wedding day, what would be the best piece of advice she would like to give to my ‘soon to bes’ for their wedding day and both her and John agreed that they should just enjoy it! As Leanne put it, “don’t let the little things become big problems. In the end it is about celebrating the two of you!” Yet again, I couldn’t agree more with my sweet couple.
Over the year the two have grown together as a unit, a family, and Mr. and Mrs. To this day, Leanne still loves John’s sense of humor and how he always has her laughing with being the life of the party! John loves Leanne’s fun and easy going personality, along with how she accepts him for him without trying to change him. As the two put it, “the past year as a married couple has been a blast. Upgrading from best friends to husband and wife was the best decision we ever made!”
After spending some time chatting and taking photos of our beautiful, styled picnic. We all noticed a little photo bomber lurking in the distance. The Bramble Tree resident peacock was very excited to liven up his day with popping in and out of the background of our picnic photos along with a handful of portraits as well.
Taking a moment to explore away from our picnic, we headed to the lovely vegetable garden on the estate for some more rustic shots of Leanne and John. While some may just see tomatoes growing, I saw a beautiful and very unique spot for photos. It was the perfect complement to Leanne’s picnic!
After a wardrobe change and a few more shots among the mossy oak trees, we packed up and headed home, but of course said by to our new feathery friend. Looking forward to keeping in touch with these two darlings and hope you enjoy our styled shoot as much as I do!
Venue: Bramble Tree Estate
Cake: Publix
