Flower Garland | Haddon Lake Park | Family Mini Sessions
I’m a big fan of working with photographers on building a flower moment for their mini sessions.
Minis are a really nice change of pace from wedding work, which typically needs to be completed under tight set-up times. I cherish work where I have a long, flexible window in which I can design on-site, at a comfortable pace, with a podcast being fed into my brain.
Mini sessions get booked for such a wide range of occasions––families who want to capture their growing kids, couples using it as an engagement shoot, real estate agents looking for updated headshots, parents-to-be having a maternity shoot. I’ve found them to be a wonderful way to introduce South Stems to new people across diverse industries in my footprint.
When I think about designing for minis, I like to include floral elements or arrangements that can easily be moved around by the photographer as they’re working through different poses and configurations of people. The flower garland in the shoot shared below was a static backdrop, but two floral arrangements could be moved around the scene to accommodate quick changes. Sometimes a session is with one person, sometimes it’s with a larger family, sometimes one kid will start having a meltdown and need to quickly change poses. It’s important to have a flexible set.
Featured Event
Who: Helen Merz Photography x South Stems Mini Sessions
Where: Haddon Lake Park in Haddon Heights, NJ
When: June 25, 2022
It was so wonderful working with Helen to plan this day and getting to watch her photograph everyone who signed up. She knows all the tricks to get your kids to smile, or calm down, or stop ripping flower arrangements apart. The woman travels with a bubble machine, I mean c’mon, she’s good. You can find her recap of the day over on her hole of the internet here.
Leaving a bucket of loose stems is my secret power for these types of shoots. Little kids will pull a few stems out of your design––it’s a 100 percent guarantee (exhibit 951 below). It’s helpful to have some “distraction flowers” to hand them that they can throw around and play with. Those moments often make for the cutest photos!
Fellow floral professionals: Mini sessions are a wonderful way to build your portfolio, get professional photography taken of your work (and you designing that work) that you can use in marketing materials and social/email content, and connect you with potential customers who will inevitably have events and celebrations along the way that will need flowers. I snail mail out thank you cards following the sessions that include a discount code on their next South Stems order to encourage attendees to enter this flower community. I’ll do a different blog post soon geared toward floral professionals about how to work with a photographer on structuring mini sessions to work best for your business.
Helen and I will be partnering up again to do another round of minis for the holiday season on Nov. 19, 2022. Sign up for the South Stems email list below to learn when those sign-ups launch. Having so much fun already brainstorming how to turn the same area into a floral winter wonderland so you can get professional photos taken for your greeting cards.
We got such a positive response about our flower garland following this shoot that it’s now available in our shop to purchase. Made to order. Sold by the foot. Clicking through the below listing will get you to the right place if you’re interested in ordering for an event.