Looking to create the most beautiful and intentional wedding flat lay photos? As a wedding photography and videography team, we love curating all of your thoughtful details into stylish combinations to highlight your small accessories. From your something borrowed jewelry, wedding invitations, shoes, bouquet and more, it’s important to reflect back on the choices that made your day special to you.
What’s the difference between a Wedding flat lay and Detail Photos?
A Wedding flat lay is where we take any stationery from the wedding and style it on a flat surface.
Wedding Stationery is considered any kind of “paper” that was used such as invitations, save the date cards, rsvp cards, envelopes, stamps, name cards, menus, etc.
Wedding Stationery can come in all shapes, sizes and colors and can be dressed up with flowers, lace, veils, and jewelry.
In my opinion, if a couple invested in a Stationery Artist, they’re going to have beautiful stationery and I believe this should be highlighted on it’s own without any extra items. The rings, the watch, the shoes, perfumes/colognes, etc can be in a Detail Photo instead.
You only really start to see stationery paired with detail items like the rings, the watch and shoes if the stationery is plain or minimal. Photographers do this to make the stationery flat lay look fuller and more interesting. Although, rules are meant to be broken, at the end of the day, do what you think artistically looks best for your couple!
But again, I strongly believe that if the couple invested in their stationery, it should go in it’s own flat lay. So try your best to separate the two.
Detail Photos are sentimental items from their attire like the wedding rings, shoes, veil, watch, bowtie, tie, sunglasses, cuff links, jewelry, bouquet, boutonniere, perfume/cologne etc. and styling them in their own photo.
Detail Photos can be really creative and don’t necessarily need to be “flat”. Since shoes and bouquets are usually large items, they can be shot more wide and on more of a statement furniture piece around the venue. Such as hanging shoes off of a chandelier, or hanging the bracelet off of the arm of a statue, etc.
Photographers are constantly trendsetting with how they capture wedding details in a fresh, creative way.
Our favorite trends lately are putting stationery in clear water, and placing shoes on vintage furniture.
Wedding Stationery Flat Lay Examples
Detail Photo Examples
How to dress up a Wedding Stationery Flat Lay
You might ask, how do I dress up a wedding stationery flat lay?
This is a list of things I ALWAYS use to dress up a Wedding Stationery Flat Lay.
- Florals from their florist (I always email the florist the week of the wedding to let them know when and where I’ll be taking detail photos so they know where to deliver the flowers. I ask for 1-2 of each variety they used in the wedding florals)
- Food! Such as grapes, macaroons, lemons, rosemary, etc. whatever matches the aesthetic and is available.
- Aesthetic styling tools in our inventory such as ribbons, pearls, trays, etc.
Creative Ideas for Detail Photos
My favorite go-to ideas for creative detail photos are:
- Shooting their jewelry inside a photography book.
Now, I might be considered “extra” for doing this but I spent about 6 months road tripping up and down the Oregon Coast and taking film photos of the landscapes and textures to create my own photography coffee table book just for this purpose. Here’s some detail photos I’ve taken inside my “Tides and Textures” coffee table book.
2. Find the numbers of their wedding date on the pool balls
I asked the groomsmen if they can find either an 8 ball and a 15 to show their wedding date August 15th or find 2026 for the wedding year and they ended up finding the 8 and 15. We paired it with the other groom details he had on hand like his sunglasses, cufflinks, bowtie, watch and boutonniere.
3. Hanging the shoes off of…. anything really!
This is my personal favorite way to highlight the bride’s shoes. I will literally walk around the entire venue with their shoes and hang them off of anything and everything and edit and deliver my favorite ones.
Creative Wedding Flat Lay & Detail Photos we love from other creatives!
As you can see in this gallery of BEAUTIFUL wedding flat lays & detail photos, you can really have fun in the most fun creative ways. Leave it up to your photo/video team to take care of this for you. Although, if you have a specific vision in mind such as, “I really want the shoes in the sink shot!” or “I really like the details captured on flash photography” definitely communicate it to them.
All photos have the creative photographers credited.
How to Arrange a Wedding Stationery Flat Lay
If you’re a wedding photographer or videographer interested in learning the basics of styling a flat lay, you’re in the right place!
To begin, you want to find a bright area with a clean, flat surface. Extra points if the venue has beautiful tile work, stone, brick, cement, etc. you can use as the backdrop. If you prefer to use a styling mat, then find a bright spot near a window or open a door and let the light in.
Next, decide how you’re going to layer the stationery.
There are 3 ways you can do this.
- Straight and spaced apart
- Straight and layered on top of each other
- Intentionally crooked
No matter which method you chose to start building the stationery, start with the main invitation card or the main statement stationery card and put it in the center and ELEVATE it.
I like to use wooden risers made for flat lays but if you don’t have this, you can use your lens caps and backs.
Once that main invitation card is in the center, you can begin to arrange your flat lay depending on the direction you’ve decided to go in: straight and spaced apart, straight and layered on top of each other or intentionally crooked.
Then, once you’ve arranged the stationery, it’s time to fill in the spaces with decorative items such as flowers, ribbons, pearls, matchboxes, etc.
I took a flat lay workshop from the talented Life in Letters here in Oregon and the biggest tip I took away from it was to arrange the flowers like a mini bouquet. Big flower heads should lay flat, so remove the stems where needed, and they shouldn’t sit alone unless it’s a large statement flower. The goal is to arrange at least 3 flowers together to create a mini bouquet.
But if the flower looks better with the stem on, then you want to tuck the broken part of the stems under the elevated stationery to so it looks like it’s coming out of the paper like a bouquet.
Let’s look at this example together:
First, notice how the main invitation card with the couple’s names enlarged is in the center and elevated off of the ground (I used my lens cap).
As you can see, the large pink peony flower on the left is standing alone because of it’s size but the smaller peonies on the right are paired with other greenery/florals.
Then, if you look at the mini bouquet of round pink flowers towards the bottom of the flat lay, we tucked the broken stems underneath the paper.
Lastly, we filled the remaining empty spaces with the muted pink amaranthus to bring more texture into the flat lay.
Finally, MIX. IT. UP.
You can never go wrong with starting with a simple flat lay of only a couple items, taking a few photos, adding more items, taking another round of photos, so on and so forth. Or, build a flat lay of all items and start taking items away slowly as you take pictures in between. Better to have options in my opinion! Especially if you have time to mix up the backgrounds and take the items somewhere new in the suite, take them outside, do something funky and creative before completely giving them back. This is your time as a vendor to push yourself outside the box.
Pro tip: Ask ahead of time for 2 copies of all of their stationery because more often than not, the stationery has a front and back side.
Late Night Chaos Flat Lays/Detail Photos for Inspiration
A Chaos Flat Lay is a very messy yet still intentional flat lay from the reception details. Think cake slices, desserts, match boxes, etc that were used for the wedding evening.
01. Romeo & Juliet Themed “Chaos” Flat Lay
While my team was capturing the dance floor, I walked around the dinner tables and sourced the following items for their “chaos flat lay”.
In this case, Jenna & Chad’s Romeo & Juliet themed wedding had these red velvet high top tables around the reception with these cute lamps. So I used my pearl tray, brass ring dish, vintage pearls and vintage broach to help style the base. Then, I went and collected a slice of cake, some desserts, broke apart a chocolate bar (the chocolate bar were their wedding take home souvenirs), a dinner menu, their rings, amaranthus from an arrangement, an empty bottle of Tito’s, their match box, and a bottle of “poison” from the seating chart.
Then, I added extra flair by emptying a bottle of “poison”, it was really just tea leaves, into my hand and sprinkling it over the entire flat lay so those little black bits you see came from that!
02 Colorful Summer Themed Chaos Flat Lay
At first glance, you might not see it but I layered her veil on the sweetheart table for some added texture and grabbed one of their wicker chargers as a base. Then, I grabbed some bud vases from other tables and grabbed their take home chocolate bar souvenirs, some cupcakes, a slice of cake, and of course the musubis!
This was a colorful summer wedding so I wanted this chaos flat lay to reflect that. I grabbed the flowers from the arrangement at their sweetheart table. Don’t worry, I took LOTS of photos of these arrangements throughout the day before we started ripping out flowers for our chaos flat lay.
03 Whimsical Chaos Flat Lay
Another colorful summer wedding, but this time I sourced a slice of cake, their custom cocktail napkins, a matchbox, two different temporary tatoos from their tattoo station, and of course some flowers. I took the first photo on the left before I decided to grab more desserts to make it more pink, whimsy and colorful like their wedding was.
I knew I wanted to do this on their sweetheart table because they had a gorgeous green floral print tablecloth that I thought paired super well with their pink flowers and decor. Pink & Green is my favorite whimsy color combo!
04 Wine Barrel Chaos Flat Lay
This was taken at a winery venue and the couple had 3 separate matchboxes for guests, fun tassel name cards, sunglasses for the dance floor and ice cream sandwiches for guests. Using a wine barrel as the base of the flat lay created a really interesting backdrop that was very on theme for their venue. I snagged a floral arrangement from a nearby table and paired it with some extra florals and dinner menus while James fetched me a spicy margarita and a polaroid of our couple. Voila! An adorable chaos flat lay.
Wedding Day Checklist of Flat Lay Items
This wedding day checklist of your flat lay items is a great resource to use the night before your wedding so you can prepare ahead of time. Our couples usually set these aside in a box of some sort, ready to go for the photo/video team the morning of.
- Wedding Rings
- Ring box and/or Ring Dish
- Bride’s Shoes
- Bride’s Veil
- Bride’s Jewelry
- Bride’s Bouquet
- Bridal purse/clutch
- Bride’s perfume
- Any sentimental linens and/or handkerchiefs
- Groom’s shoes
- Groom’s boutonniere
- Groom’s watch
- Groom’s cuff links
- Groom’s tie
- Groom’s Cologne
- Groom’s cigars
- Vow Books
Print this checklist for later!
Or save to your pinterest for quick reference
My Wedding Flat Lays
When it was my turn to get married, I spent my entire engagement looking for the most sentimental items for our destination wedding in Thailand.
First, our stationery from the amazing Courting Design featured a custom watercolor destination map of Phuket island as part of our stationery suite, a carved rock elephant and a gold elephant wax seal. Love the vintage purse too? I used it to store my wedding gloves on the day of, and it was a perfect detail for our flat lay!
Read more about our wedding HERE.
And since our bridal shower theme was “On Cloud Wine” we added feather details to our pillow soft stationery, a cloud shaped rock and Ariana Grande’s cloud perfume! Read more about our Bridal Shower HERE.
Stationery by the amazing Courting Design
Wedding Flat Lay Styling Inventory
Your job is to bring your sentimental details above, our job is to elevate it with luxury styling pieces that enhance their beauty!
If you’re a wedding creative reading this, try to build a “flat lay kit” with some basic items such as a styling mat, ribbons, stamps, ring trays, etc.
And if you’re an engaged couple reading this, go hunting for unique styling pieces at antique malls and thrift stores!
Shop my Flat Lay Kit on Shop My by Alesia Films
Check out my Flat Lay Essentials on Shop My Here.
