Wedding Photos Inspired by “The Grand Budapest Hotel” - A Wedding on the Lake in Holland, Michigan
Movies have long been a source of inspiration for my wedding photography, from color grading to compositions to specific poses, and my love of symmetry can be traced back to my longtime love of Wes Anderson. I saw Moonrise Kingdom as a teenager and was immediately taken in by how stylistic and restrained the visuals of the film were, while still having so much heart and humanity. Similar can be said about wedding photography, which is all about finding the right balance of posing and candids to best capture the true emotions of the day.
When Abby and Matin first approached me about photographing their wedding in Holland, Michigan, they had concerns about having their faces posted on social media, which led to some creativity to make sure I was able to have some marketing materials for an out of town wedding that also kept my clients comfortable (top priority always!). With new constraints in place, I found inspiration from The Grand Budapest Hotel, a film that works around constraint, stylistically and thematically.
For this vision board, I looked for shots with lots of symmetry, wide angles, and those overhead shots of hands and details that are very common in Wes Anderson films. The hands specifically really influenced me, they were a fun way to photograph some of Abby and Matin’s details and it included them in the photos themselves.
For their guest book, Abby and Matin had boxed sets of postcards featuring Impressionist works and Japanese artist Utagawa Hiroshige, so everyone got to write them sweet notes to read after the wedding. The cards reminded me of some shots of keys from The Grand Budapest Hotel, which was a fun coincidence!
The venue, Boatwerks Lakeside Restaurant, had a open dining room and big patio, which allowed me to get a lot of wide shots during Abby and Matin’s couples portraits that really captured the space.
Another unplanned bit of Wes Anderson style magic was the outdoor lighting at Boatwerks, which let me capture similar color palette to some of shots from the film. I loved the intense contrast of blues and yellows, and while the wedding photos were a little more toned down, we made a lot of use of the string lights.
If you love movies and are looking for a wedding photographer, say hey! I’d love to capture your day and bring a little movie magic to life.