Heart & Soul: When a wedding theme becomes a language

Styled Shoot

6 Sept

There is something wonderfully strange about the way we've turned the heart into a symbol of love. The real thing isn't symmetrical. It isn't pink. It certainly doesn't come with an arrow through it. It's muscle and valves and blood. It beats somewhere beneath your ribs without asking permission, keeping you alive while you fall in love, have your heart broken, mend it, risk it and ultimately decide to give it to somebody else. Which, when you think about it, makes the anatomical heart a rather perfect wedding symbol.

When we created Heart & Soul, that was the idea at its centre. Not simply a red gothic wedding. Not “put anatomical hearts on everything”, although, admittedly, we came dangerously close. It was about taking one symbol and allowing a whole group of alternative wedding creatives to interpret it. And that is where a wedding theme starts becoming something much more interesting.

Start with a feeling, not a shopping list

The original moodboard was saturated in oxblood, black and deep crimson. Velvet. Candlelight. Anatomy. Dark florals. Religious iconography. A little decadence. A little horror. The sort of dinner party at which you wouldn't be entirely confident what was in the wine.

But a moodboard isn't a set of instructions. It's a world you're inviting people into.

And when different creatives are given a strong enough world to work within, they don't need to make matching things. They begin responding to one another. That is exactly what happened here.

Let the motif mutate

Look closely and the heart keeps appearing, but never quite in the same way. At the table, anatomical hearts sit at the centre of velvet-bound place settings. Elsewhere they're preserved beneath glass like Victorian curiosities. The stationery turns anatomy into graphic symbolism. Even the tiny favours carry the motif.

Then the flowers take it somewhere else entirely. Deep reds, black foliage, berries, twisting branches and long trailing amaranthus make the arrangements feel almost organic themselves. The bouquet carried a bloody red anatomical heart with an added dimension… it lit up (yes of course it’s a Maddison Rocks Floral!)

A theme becomes immersive when not everything is saying the same thing, but everything is speaking the same language.

And then there is all that red.

Not an accent colour politely introduced through a pocket square or a napkin. Red tulle. Red veil. Red florals. Black lace. Burgundy brocade. Jewelled details. A skirt spilling across the floor like a pool of colour.

Against centuries-old timber and portraiture, the couple don't disappear into their venue. They become part of its drama.

There is something especially delicious about taking all the visual language traditionally associated with romance - flowers, veils, candlelight, beautiful clothes, exchanging rings - and refusing to make any of it delicate.

Romance doesn't have to be pale to be tender, and darkness doesn't cancel softness.

And then let real life into it

Perhaps that's my favourite thing about these photographs.

For all the symbolism, styling and glorious theatrical excess, there are two people looking at each other. A celebrant wrapping a cord around their joined hands. A ring being held against skin. A quiet moment behind a red veil.

That's where all the objects suddenly make sense, because a wedding isn't really about hearts, skulls, flowers, candles or colour palettes. Those are simply the things we use to tell people something about ourselves.

The real story is still: I choose you.