COUTURE COUPLE | Rina & Bram {ROME}

Jennifer Skog and I were contacted by who is probably the most romantic groom we've ever encounter. Bram wanted to setup a surprise COUTURE COUPLE shoot for his fiance Rina in Rome, Italy. Of course we immediately said yes and made arrangements for our trip. The most difficult part of the whole thing was to keep our mouth shut, since it was a surprise and Rina is an avid reader of our blogs, we could not uttered a word...

Part of the plan was to surprise Rina the night before at a restaurant and Jen and I were a little nervous that Rina would freak out at the presence of two strangers who will be claiming to photograph her the next day with no time to prepare. We even practiced what we were going to say before entering the restaurant: Hi Rina! We're a photographer & makeup artist team from California and Bram hired us to photograph your engagement photos"... or something like that...

Needless to say, as soon as we walked in the restaurant Rina recognized us and started shouting... "No you didn't... No you didn't.." She immediately knew why we were there and we couldn't even speak our rehearsed intro. Laughter & crying took over, followed but an amazing dinner and talk of our shoot the next day.

At the shoot, we started early morning with hair & makeup and we put together outfits with Rina's clothes and the clothes we brought with us for the shoot. Since this was a surprise we wanted to make sure we had cute outfits for her in case she packed light. We started the shoot in front of the Pantheon, moved on to the Colosseum, Spanish Steps and the countless amazing locations in Rome. There was beauty all around us and it got a bit overwhelming at times, how to choose from so many beautiful locations? We walked all day until we could walk no more...

This shoot was extra special for us... NOT because of the amazing opportunity to shoot in Italy, or the glamour of the whole thing. BUT because Rina & Bram are such amazing people and it was an honor for us to photograph their love. Rina is the most deserving girl; she's genuinely a unique person with a huge heart and a zest for life. I'm so proud to call them friends now.

Enjoy the photos! ...I'll be posting a video soon...

For more photos of this shoot visit the Skog As In Vogue Blog.