A Wedding That Started as a Styled Shoot

Alexa and Zach’s wedding at The Orange Blossom Barn in Bushnell, FL was the very first wedding held on the property under its new ownership, and it’s also how we became a preferred vendor there.

Alexa spent years working alongside Catlyn of Chaos Coordinating by Catlyn, so she has seen more weddings from the inside than most brides ever do. Catlyn knows us well, and she also knows the new owners of The Orange Blossom Barn. When the venue changed hands, the owners needed photos of the newly renovated property, so Catlyn connected us to do a styled shoot there. Alexa and Zach were still in the early stages of venue hunting for their own wedding at the time.

The timing worked itself out. Instead of a separate styled shoot, Alexa and Zach’s wedding became the shoot. It was their actual wedding day, first dance, cake, all of it, and it also happened to be the very first Orange Blossom Barn wedding under new ownership. Every vendor walked away with real, usable images from a real couple’s day, Alexa and Zach got married exactly the way they wanted to, and it’s the connection that made us a preferred photography and videography vendor at The Orange Blossom Barn going forward.

The Ceremony at The Orange Blossom Barn

There was no first look at this Bushnell wedding. Zach waited at the end of the aisle beneath the shaded trees at The Orange Blossom Barn, at an arbor draped in white fabric and greenery, and when Alexa came into view, he teared up before she’d even reached him.

A Reception Under the String Lights

As the sun went down, the celebration moved inside the barn at The Orange Blossom Barn, string lights strung overhead and a blue and white tablescape carrying the evening, right down to the pearl-topped napkins and gold flatware. The night closed out with a sparkler exit, guests lined up on either side as Alexa and Zach walked through.

Wedding Photography at The Orange Blossom Barn

Xiwei, Rachel, and Jo all shot this wedding together as a full photo and video team, so Alexa and Zach’s day at The Orange Blossom Barn was covered from every angle. We’re now a preferred photography and videography vendor at The Orange Blossom Barn, and we waive travel fees for weddings here even though it sits well outside our usual Sarasota-Bradenton coverage area. We’d love to help capture your Bushnell wedding too.

Abby and Tyler got married on an island today. Not a metaphor. The Hollow is a veteran-owned, ten-plus acre outdoor wedding venue in Venice, FL, offering couples two different ceremony sites to choose from, a chapel and the island. The island site is exactly what it sounds like, a small piece of land surrounded by water on every side, reached by nautical walkways, where couples say their vows under a white pergola framed by tropical foliage. The water itself has a real story behind it, the space used to be a quarry, and what’s left is more than 60 feet deep in places, all natural rainwater. Abby and Tyler chose the island.

This venue is family for Abby and Tyler in more ways than one. Tyler’s own dad is The Hollow’s property manager, and the venue’s owner, Tyler, and his dad are all originally from Rhode Island. The owner built the property out of a background in concrete work, and it shows, the stunning rock formations and hidden caves scattered across the grounds are as much his craft on display as they are a wedding backdrop.

Tyler flew in from North Carolina with Abby a week ahead of the wedding, and once he was here, he spent several of those days working alongside his dad to get the grounds ready. Florida had just come through one of its coldest winters in 15 years, back to back freeze events in January and February that state officials later called some of the most damaging in Florida’s history, with subfreezing temperatures reported across 66 counties. The Hollow’s tropical vegetation took a real hit. So in the week before his own wedding, Tyler rolled up his sleeves and helped bring the property back to life.

On the day itself, family flew in from Ohio and Rhode Island to watch Abby and Tyler say yes with the water glittering around them.

The First Look at Solis Hall

Before any of the ceremony madness, Abby and Tyler shared their first look at Solis Hall, Wellen Park’s waterfront event space in Downtown Wellen, just a short drive from The Hollow. Solis Hall sits right on the community’s 80-acre Grand Lake, with floor to ceiling windows and a front porch that doubles as a stage overlooking the Great Lawn. It made for a quiet, beautiful backdrop for this one private moment, just the two of them, before the day opened up to family, friends, and eventually a whole island full of people.

Doing Our Homework

We like to be over prepared, and this wedding was no exception. We attended Abby and Tyler’s rehearsal, and we had already walked The Hollow’s grounds before, on a tour years earlier with a different couple whose wedding there ended up getting cancelled because of COVID. We also visited Solis Hall ahead of time specifically to check the venue’s event calendar, since we wanted to make sure nothing else was scheduled there that could interfere with Abby and Tyler’s first look. Small world moment while we were there: Casey, the planner working at Solis Hall that day, turned out to have gotten married herself at Bakers Ranch, one of our other favorite venues to shoot.

When the Shuttle Breaks Down, You Uber In

No wedding day goes exactly to plan, and this one had its own story to tell. The shuttle bus hired to bring guests in broke down that morning, and rather than sending a replacement, the company ended up cancelling on Abby and Tyler entirely. Shy Chic Boutique had their hands on every part of this day, full coordination, decor setup, and planning from start to finish, and when the shuttle fell through, three of their team members were on site helping guests reroute on the spot. The guests did what any determined wedding crowd does: they Ubered in, one carload at a time, and the ceremony started right on schedule anyway. Nobody missed a thing. Shy Chic’s support didn’t stop there either, at the end of the night, Larry, Cheyanne’s husband, offered to personally shuttle guests back to their hotel.

Welcome to Florida, Guests

Water on all sides makes for stunning wedding photos, but it also comes with a very real Florida detail. The alligators swimming around the ceremony site were real, not decorative, and more than a few out-of-state guests spent the day convinced otherwise. Consider this the local wisdom, passed down for free: if the water looks like sweet tea, you don’t go in unless you’re ready to throw down with a dinosaur. Welcome to Florida.

A Day Worth Every Mile Traveled

Between the freeze cleanup, the shuttle drama, and a few surprised out-of-state guests learning about Florida wildlife the hard way, Abby and Tyler’s wedding had every reason to go sideways. Instead it turned into exactly the kind of day we love shooting, a little unpredictable, deeply personal, and surrounded by people who traveled real distances to be there for it. Congratulations again, Abby and Tyler. We’re so glad your island said yes right along with you.

If you’re planning a wedding at The Hollow, Solis Hall, or anywhere else in the Sarasota, Bradenton, or Venice area and want to talk photography or cinematography, we’d love to hear from you.

Some engagement sessions get built around a couple’s whole weekend. This one got built around a flight.

A Weekend Packed Full of Wedding Planning

Abby and Tyler live in North Carolina, which meant every trip to Florida ahead of their wedding had to work overtime. The weekend of their engagement session was no exception. They kicked things off with a catering tasting with Chef Mike, sat down for a floral consultation with Shy Chic Boutique, and squeezed in a hair and makeup trial with Dolled Up Brides, all before they ever got in front of the camera. By the time golden hour rolled around at Dickson Azalea Park, these two had already put in a full weekend of work toward their upcoming wedding at The Hollow Forever Free.

Why Dickson Azalea Park

Every location we considered first was actually further from Orlando, places like Emerson Point Preserve, Bok Tower Gardens, and Lettuce Lake Park. All three would have given us gorgeous images, but none of them worked with the schedule Abby and Tyler were on. Getting to any of them with enough time to shoot would have meant starting well before the light turned soft and golden, the way we love it for portraits. Staying later to catch that light properly was not an option either, since Abby and Tyler had a flight out of MCO to catch right after.

So we needed something close to the airport that could still deliver real golden hour light on a tight timeline, and Dickson Azalea Park checked every box. We had shot there before, for Sam and Chris’s wedding, so we already knew the space and knew it would come through for us.

Dickson Azalea Park is one of the more unusual spots we shoot in Orlando, and one of the city’s oldest. What is now a quiet, sunken garden tucked into a neighborhood near Thornton Park started out as a natural, spring fed creek that once served as a watering hole for cattle herders passing through the area. State Senator Walter Rose bought the land in 1916 and later set aside five acres around the creek for public use, donating it to the City of Orlando in 1924. In 1935, Works Progress Administration crews built out the park’s stone walls, bridges, and paths, and it was named for Colonel Henry Hill Dickson, credited with bringing azaleas to the city. Almost a century later, it still feels like someone carved an opening out of the neighborhood and dropped a garden into it, this pocket of green, woodsy calm in the middle of Orlando that photographs like it is nowhere near a major city at all.

Golden Light and a Whole Lot of Laughing

Florida heat does not care about your travel schedule, and this session had plenty of it. Despite the temperature, Abby and Tyler were all smiles and full of laughs from start to finish. The late afternoon sun broke through the foliage in exactly the way we hope for on every outdoor session, and this couple made it easy, relaxed with each other, quick to laugh, and completely unbothered by the heat.

Why Shy Chic Boutique Made Sense for an Out of Town Couple

Planning a Florida wedding from North Carolina comes with its own challenges, and it is a big part of why Abby and Tyler brought Shy Chic Boutique on board. Beyond florals, Shy Chic handled the planning and pulled together their entire vendor team, catering, cake, DJ, hair and makeup, rentals, and more, all under one roof. For a couple who could not just swing by in person whenever a decision needed to be made, having one trusted point of contact assembling the whole day made all the difference.

That kind of full service planning is exactly why we’re giving Shy Chic’s whole team a mention here, even though this post is about the engagement session, not the wedding day itself. This is who Abby and Tyler trusted to bring it all together:

A Preview of What Was Coming

This session turned out to be a preview of something bigger. A few months later, Abby and Tyler said their vows on the island ceremony site at The Hollow Forever Free, surrounded by family who flew in from Ohio and Rhode Island. If you want to see how their story continued, check back soon to see the post!

Congratulations Again, Abby and Tyler

Thank you for making time for us in the middle of an already packed weekend. It set the tone for everything that came after.

If you are planning a wedding or engagement session and want to talk photography, we would love to hear from you. See our work and reach out at ying-multimedia.com.

We shot this styled bridal session at The Retreat Sarasota not long after the venue first opened its doors for weddings and events, and it remains one of our favorite spaces to photograph. Our returning couple Brandie and David stepped in front of the camera for us, and the golden hour light did the rest. The property is anchored by a canopy of sprawling oaks draped in Spanish moss, with open pasture stretching out beyond it and a sky that turned every shade of pink and purple right on cue.

What we love most about The Retreat is how many distinct backdrops live on one property. There is a rustic swing hanging from one of the old oaks, a white ranch style fence perfect for golden hour portraits, and a modern front porch entrance with warm wood accents where a couple can start or end their night. Just down the path sits The Gathering Place, a barn style reception venue that lights up beautifully once the sun goes down. The property sits on 84 acres of conservation land, and beyond the oaks and ponds we shot around, couples have the option of hosting large tented celebrations on the front field for over a thousand guests, or something far more intimate by the reflection pond. The Retreat Sarasota

One thing that makes this venue special beyond the visuals is its mission. Every event at The Retreat Sarasota supports Resilient Retreat, a nonprofit that helps adult survivors of trauma, including first responders and helping professionals, through free confidential programs. It has earned the nickname the venue that saves lives, and knowing your wedding day is also giving back to the community adds a layer of meaning that a lot of couples find really special.

The Retreat has grown and changed since these photos were taken, but the bones that make it such a beautiful backdrop are still there. If you are considering The Retreat Sarasota for your own wedding day, we hope these images give you a real feel for what the space can look like when the light hits just right. Huge thanks to our friends at Dolled Up Brides for hair and Shy Chic Boutique for the florals that tied the whole look together.