West Elm Home Feature

When Josh + I moved to Portland back in January, we jumped quickly into making our house feel like home . In a new city where we knew no one, it was important to use that we felt at ease + happy in our new home . And since we both work from home, we wanted to create a space that was inspiring, functional, comfortable, + creative . We made the space inspiring by adding variety in our textures and materials, but still keeping a minimalistic design . We're suckers for Scandinavian design!
With Josh being a woodworker, our home started to overflow with his furniture pieces . The coffee table, side table, + adjustable shelf peg wall (inspired from the Pruitt's) were all made by him over the past year . You can find his work + order custom pieces here! He's so talented <3

We were thrilled to have our home featured over on West Elm's blog . Feel free to check it out + see which West Elm pieces we bought for our home! That Retro Wing Chair is my baby . It hugs me perfectly .

I love using Pinterest to find inspiration, especially on home decor + design! Check mine out here! Where do you draw your home inspiration from? 

#bridalshowertakeover

Another repost, I know. But hey, I've rebranded + revamped a lot of things, this specific shoot included! Plus, this #bridalshowertakeover got picked up by Mingle Magazine! The whole event has a 3 page spread in their Autumn 2016 issue and we are pumped. Along with the photos, they also included my story about why I through the whole event. I'm so excited about the feature, but also excited to share it again here! **I've decided to make the #bridalshowertakeover more of a thing, so be on the lookout for your chance to be the next chosen bride for a bridal shower takeover in 2017! (vendors who want to be included in this, please e-mail me!)**

So here it is, the story + photos from our celebrated event :

I have a strong desire to make every bride I talk to realize what a special season of life she’s in. Engagements should be so sweet & thrilling, full of love & anticipation. A bride should be showered, adorned, celebrated . So in order to help a bride have a more enjoyable engagement, I hosted a contest/giveaway for one extraordinary bride-to-be. I hosted the event on Instagram + Facebook, asking girls and guys to nominate their friend or fiancé for this event, stating why they deserved it, and then to hashtag our event’s name, “#bridalshowertakeover”.

With this contest, over 100 entries were created with just an outpour of love and adoration for these brides to be. It was beautiful reading each nomination, lengthy posts praising and encouraging girls everywhere.

In addition to my desire to throw this shower for a special bride, I also wanted to include some of my favorite vendors from Oklahoma. Some were just simply my favorites, while others are working to get their business up and running in the wedding industry and I wanted to offer potential publicity for their hard work and creations. It all came together beautifully and all the vendors did amazing work.

With the vision I had in my mind of what I wanted this bridal shower in the woods to look like, I requested that all the girls come in their favorite little black dress. We pampered the winning bride, Emily, with hair & makeup, full wardrobe, and a beautiful flower crown to make her feel extra special.

Fruity cocktails kept the girls warm, lively and giggly all evening, desserts and award winning quiche danced on their forks, and overhanging lights and candles created a dream ambiance. We had a blast showering Emily and reminding her this season of life is such an exciting and fun one, even in the midst of stressful wedding planning.

So excited that this #bridalshowertakeover was featured on Green Wedding Shoes, as well as in Mingle Magazine. We’re super grateful for both features. Once you’re done looking through these images, see a few extra photos on GWS blog here, and buy your Mingle Autumn 2016 issue here! 

*See all the amazing vendors who contributed below <3

To make this even better, we filmed it! Check out the video from the whole event here from April Kirby of Ethos Creative //

photography: Melissa Marshall  // planning + design: Melissa Marshall & XO Events & Design // venue: Southwind Hills Goldsby, Oklahoma // florals: Haleigh of XO Events & Design // flower crowns: Forage Floral // catering + desserts: Take A Seed // farm tables: Kahoy Studios // makeup: Chelsey Ann // hair: blo. OKC // cocktail recipe: Chris Castro // calligraphy: Kiah Bailey // bride’s attire: Windsor // dessert table: Josh Marshall Woodworking // macrame plant hangers + wall hanger: FromAtlasOn // videography: Ethnos Creative // photo assistance: Jessi Chapman

HANNAH ASHFORD

I’ve been scraping at an empty shell, trying to dig out something that’s not there : me.

It sounds odd, I know. But somewhere over the past who knows how long, I’ve slowly lost who I am when it comes to my work/passion/creativity/spirit. A big part of that is due to the winter season and to our move to Oregon. I haven’t shot much and it’s been a forced sabbatical, which I’m not upset about. It’s also because it’s way too easy to just hang out with Josh all day and explore our new city. All these things are good, but coming back into photography season, I feel this odd sense of fear/unknown. Josh is my biggest fan and support when it comes to my photography and my work. And I’ve been pushing myself daily to be that #girlboss I want to be and that my friends/family think that I am. But I’m pretty sure I’ve been pretending. There are photographers and entrepreneurs of all kinds popping up every single day. The market is saturated and there are so many options for anything you could ever desire. How do you keep your integrity of who you are as an artist when your inspiration board is constantly growing and you’re over-stimulated with ideas/visions/wishes/dreams/goals and the industry is more competitive than ever? I am so not a competitive person. And I’m not one to scream and holler “look at me!”, but I do care what people think, to an extent. I care about what I’m putting out there, while at the same time, not. I’m figuring out who I am, and what I’ve found out is that I am one complicated slab of sunshine. I’m a walking contradiction in a lot of ways. Not because I’m fake, but I have a very broad range of likes/dislikes (and emotions, let’s be real). I’m drawn to things that are polar opposites of each other. But maybe that’s it.

Maybe I love granola-esque melancholy short stories in Kinfolk, simple edits + simple life, while also loving the slang cursing and crazy energy of Andria Lindquist and living life to it’s extreme and being a wild child. Maybe I’m both. Whatever I am, whoever I am, I’m thankful I’m her. Because Josh chose her and Josh is hot and I’m in love with him. And I’m thankful I'm her because she made the friends I have, whom I’m obsessed with and couldn’t do life without. And I’m thankful I'm her because she follows Jesus and He’s the absolute reason for everything good in my life. And I’m thankful I'm her, because she’s crazy psycho, but she loves wildly and she creates endlessly and she’s breathing and she’s me. I’m still on this path of figuring it all out. I’ll probably never reach the end. But this is my journey. At 25 freaking years old, I swore I had this all figured out 5 years ago! But I do think a part of figuring all this out is writing it out. Sharing it. That's always been a part of me and i've back-burnered it. Not anymore.

//

Even with all these raw + honest thoughts, there is one person who saw through it all. She listened to my word vomit of thoughts and contradictions, my likes/dislikes, my heart. & she listened with a heart of gold like real friends do. & she helped me create this website and new brand of melissamarshall.co. She pushes me creatively and spiritually, always encouraging, patient, understanding, and joy-filled.

Hannah Ashford.

We became friends when I shot her wedding a couple years ago. And from then forward, I’ve watched her pursue her dreams. Milestone by milestone, even the boring and tedious ones, she’s pushed through them. She's so incredible at what she does. It doesn't matter if its business related or friend/family related, she pours her heart & soul & skill into every thing she does. It's so inspiring to watch her quietly work so diligently and to bring other's dreams to life. And now to get to watch the journey she's on, for her to bring forth a long time dream, there’s so much on the horizon for this little bumblebee.

We created these images with her passions in mind : graphic designer, dancer, creative consultant, wife, visual stylist, artist, director, girlboss.

We wanted to stretch ourselves, hold nothing back, pursue . & so we did .