My Roman Bridals

Again, I am going to point out that this is just one more example of how I am "using my resources". I am lucky enough to have a mother who is a professional wedding photographer. So if that is your resource, I highly recommend using it.

After spending a few days scouting out locations, we decided that we would do the shoot on Saturday night at the Trevi fountain and the Coliseum. We knew that we would have to do the shoot in the middle of the night in order to avoid the crowds, and so we didn't even leave the hotel until somewhere around 10 pm. Walking around Rome in a wedding dress (without a groom!) is an incredibly surreal experience. People are constantly yelling "Tanti Auguri!", which translates roughly to mean "many wishes".

All photos by Denise Andersen.

Appearances can definitely be deceiving. The Trevi Fountain was ANYTHING but devoid of crowds that night. We started the shoot at around 11 pm and were lucky enough to find a little corner empty of people.

Once I established myself in this corner for shooting, people tended to stay away from me. Wearing a wedding dress gives you a strange feeling of power.

To achieve a floaty veil shot like this one, you must have a volunteer willing to throw the veil up in the air and run away as quickly as possible. My volunteer was a girl from the U.S. who had a friend with her that warned me the photos she was taking would be all over Facebook the next day.

I think we made it to the coliseum somewhere around 2 or 3 am. You will notice that in most of these photos I am not smiling, as I was focusing all of my energy towards trying to figure out what to do with that dang veil.

A gentle wind picked up towards the end of the evening and it was just perfect. It made the veil float, and it kept me from doing really weird things like wrapping it around myself like a mummy (you'll see a shot of that later).

These last few were taken somewhere around 3:30 am. I could hardly stand up straight, but the exhaustion was definitely worth it because they ended up being my favorite shots of the night.

If you see a look of extreme pain on my face it's because these shots were taken while my Mom held the camera in one hand and took the pictures, and used her other hand to yank my veil up and down. My poor sister will forever be a little bitter that she wasn't allowed to come along on this trip and act as the assistant photographer. We definitely could have used her for this part of the night.

Hands down, this black and white shot is my favorite. I love the movement in it, and that the coliseum is a little bit muted in the background.

Once again, thanks to MILLIE for loaning us this gorgeous dress, I hope it was worth it for them as it was for us! They have been working on taking new photos of their entire collection, and they look really good, effectively proving that you do not need to haul one of these dresses to Europe to look great in it.

Have you for some reason not had your fill? There are even more pictures to be seen here!