his and hers sweets: dia de los muertos
Now for the second post in our His and Hers Sweets blog series with Goldenrod Pastries and Jenny Rawson Photography. When planning the editorial calendar for this series, I knew I wanted to incorporate Dia de los Muertos into our November shoot. This holiday, observed on November first, honors the Mexican tradition of celebrating the lives of departed loved ones using vibrant flowers, colorful sugar sculls, and bright papel picado banners.
About the Pastries (from Angela): I wanted to do my take on some classic Mexican sweets. Churros are so great because they have such a unique, organic shape – and . Instead of doing the classic cinnamon and sugar coating on these, I chose to use cardamom and sugar. I wish you could smell them! The cinnamon cake includes a rich dulce de leche that was infused with star anise and cardamom pods, then roasted cashews were added. Both of these desserts would be unique and exciting additions to any wedding menu.
About the Styling: Even though Dia de los Muertos is known for it’s bright colors, we wanted to keep the look and feel of the shoot bridal. In the spirit of the holiday, we created a Mexican-inspired altar or ofrenda filled with candles and dark red garden roses. We kept everything neutral, so the focus remained on the enticing dulce de leche dripping down the cake and the dramatic dark chocolate accompanying the churros.
Intricately decorated sugar skulls and elaborate face painting have become well-known symbols of Dia de los Muertos. Lindsay had the great idea of recreating these patterns in bridal white, so we had Sharon of Arbor Street Studios hand-paint these detailed designs on our model’s forearms like lace gloves. The painting looked stunning on her olive skin and paired beautiful with the lace wedding gown from Ready or Knot.
We invited a few of our vendor friends to help bring the spirit of Dia De Los Muertos to our photo shoot. A big thank you to:
