A Photographers Guide to Great Styling Materials

Getting you ready for the 2020 wedding season and keeping your creativity going during Quarantine.

Shot By: William DeSena

Every year I spend my Spring prepping for the upcoming wedding season. I start by getting my gear serviced, updating my equipment, buying film, and one of my favorite things, buying new styling tools for flat-lay design. Today I wanted to share what I use for flat lays and where you can purchase all the pretty things! This is also a great resource if you’re bored in Quarantine and want to get creative at home.

Styling Dishes: 

I love styling dishes! These are amazing to hold rings, earrings, and fine jewelry. They add dimension to your flat lays and are easily transportable. 

Marbella Dish. These are some of my favorite because they look really pretty and they’re plastic. I usually don’t use plastic materials, and in most of my practices I try to be as sustainable as possible, but it’s extremely hard to transport glass or ceramic dishes when you’re running around all day at a wedding. These dishes come in many colors and sizes.

SOCOSY Classic Matte Ceramic Sauce Dishes. I bought these dishes on amazon and they are extremely affordable and really cute. However, they are ceramic so I like to use these when I know I won’t be running around from one location to the next. 

Styling Mats:

Locust Collection

(Featured above) These styling mats are amazing. In my opinion they’re worth the price tag of $180. Why? Because they’re extremely portable and they’re reversible. When I’m shooting a wedding I have so many things to think about that I will pay for the convenience of portable styling materials. The last thing I want to do is lug around things that will break or are hard to carry. 

Jessica Raye Dekker:

These mats are rollable and there are a variety of colors. Each one has a marbled texture to it and they’re hand painted canvas. Prices start at $85. 

Chasing Stone: 

Chasing stone is a great place to source mats with a pop of color.  These are premium canvases with frayed edges. These matts also have a marbled look and come with a price tag of $145.00

OliveandOakMat on Amazon: 

I just stumbled across this account on Amazon and these mats are double sided and rollable. They also come in a transparent container for storage. The best part of these mats is that they’re $115! 

Lux Bindery: 

These mats are not rollable, but their price tag is $110, which is much less than the rollable mats. Available fabrics include Cotlin, Oatmeal, Champagne, Silver, Fog, Heathered Blue, Seafoam, Blue Gold, Pewter, Deep Blue, Blue Silver, Blush, Cinnamon, Taupe, Gray Buckram, Linen, & Black.

Favorite Etsy Shops for Flat Lay Styling: 

PaperieandSilk: 

This Etsy shop has everything beautiful from velvet and silk ribbon, to styling bundles and styling dishes. This shop is also based in Texas which makes shipping times fast! 

LinenLark: 

This store has a lot of options from fabrics, table runners, swatches, napkins, and a variety of ribbon.

LustreTheory:

LustreTheory offers flat lay blocks for adding dimension to your flat lays. Made from clear acrylic, these styling blocks add height and dimension to product photography or wedding stationery flat lay designs.

Stamps and paper goods:

Little Postage House: 

This company specializes in vintage postage. They have an enormous library of vintage postage and everything pretty. 

Scissors, Wedding Trays and Wicker Fans on Amazon:

Scissors – Amazon has a variety of affordable vintage looking scissors 

Metal Tray with Distressed Finish

Turkish Ottoman Serving Tray

Wicker Fans

Wicker Fans (White) on The Knot

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