I needed a portfolio, I needed community, and I needed to figure out what I actually wanted to be making. Styled shoots gave me all three at the same time. If you’re wondering how a florist goes from zero portfolio to the work you’re looking at right now, styled shoots are almost always a big part of the answer.
Megan | Phoenix, AZ Florist | Fleur de Vie Studio
When I launched Fleur de Vie I had no portfolio worth showing anyone.
I had experience. I had skills. I had years of working in floral departments and events and corporate wellness and whatever else the universe had routed me through before it finally said okay, now. But I didn’t have the kind of photographs that make someone look at a website and think she’s the one.
So I started showing up in Facebook wedding vendor groups. Commenting on every post I could find that seemed relevant. Responding to brides in planning mode. Connecting with photographers and planners who were in the same position I was, new to the market, building a portfolio, trying to get their names in the right rooms.
And then I started doing styled shoots.
If you don’t know what those are, they’re essentially fake weddings built by a team of vendors who all want content. No real couple. No real guests. Just a beautifully designed scene that gets photographed and submitted to publications and posted to portfolios everywhere. Everyone contributes their services. Everyone gets the images. Everyone builds their brand at the same time.
It sounds transactional, it kind of is. It became one of the most formative seasons of my career.
What I was actually after
Content, obviously. Photos that looked nothing like the grocery store arrangements I had made in my early days when I was charging embarrassingly little just to have something to show. Real design work, real photography, proof that I could do the thing I said I could do at the level I wanted to be doing it at.
But here’s what I didn’t fully anticipate.
The shoots gave me my people.
The photographers who kept calling me back. The planners who kept wanting to collaborate. The other vendors who showed up with the same energy I was trying to bring and made the whole thing feel like something more than a content strategy session. Those people became my actual friends. The kind you text when something goes sideways and when something goes right. The kind who refer you because they genuinely trust you, not because they have your card in a drawer somewhere.
That community is one of the things I’m most grateful for in this whole business. The floral industry can feel cliquey and closed off when you’re new to it. Styled shoots cracked that open for me. I found my pocket of people and once I was in, everything moved differently.
How shoots shaped what I actually make
This is the part I think about most when I look back.
When you’re taking every inquiry that comes your way because you need the momentum, which is what you do when you’re starting out and survival matters more than curation, you end up designing across a huge range of aesthetics. Some of them are yours. Some of them really aren’t. And it’s genuinely hard to tell the difference when you’re in hustle mode and every job feels like progress.
Shoots gave me space to design for myself. No client brief. No wish list. No budget constraints that required compromise after compromise after compromise. Just me, a mood, a concept, and whatever I could pull together to make it real.
That’s when I started figuring out what I actually reached for when nothing was directing me.
The sculptural asymmetric stuff. The unexpected color combinations that had no business working together and completely did. The movement and texture and designs that looked like they grew rather than got arranged. The dark and moody directions that made certain photographers lose their entire minds in the best way.
That became the through line of the work. And I couldn’t have found it any other way. You can’t discover your aesthetic by executing other people’s visions indefinitely. You have to make something with no one else’s hand in it and see what comes out.
The La Marca moment
The shoots also led directly to my first corporate client, which I didn’t see coming at all.
I did a mini personal portfolio shoot with a citrus-inspired concept. Real fruit, selenite crystals, a color story that felt more like a product launch than a wedding. Things I was genuinely drawn to making. Then I did a shot afterward specifically with a La Marca Prosecco bottle and the florals I had just built, just because I thought they went well together and I wanted the photos.
I posted it. Tagged La Marca.
They emailed me.
That was my first real brand client. And it led directly to the Prada activation path that followed. None of that would have happened if I hadn’t been doing shoots, building content, putting specific kinds of work in front of specific kinds of eyes, and trusting that the right people would find it.
The universe tends to confirm when you’re moving in the right direction. The shoots were me moving in the right direction even when I couldn’t fully see where it led.
Why I still do them
I don’t need shoots the way I did in the beginning. The portfolio exists. The planners know my name. The clients come in already knowing what they’re looking for.
But I still say yes to the right ones when they come along. Because shoots are still the place where I get to try something I haven’t tried before.
A new structural concept I’ve been thinking about. A color direction I’ve been wanting to explore that hasn’t shown up in a client brief yet. A collaboration with a photographer or planner I haven’t worked with and want to understand better. The shoots are my laboratory. The practice space. The place where the next version of the work gets developed before anyone is asking for it professionally.
They’re also, honestly, still just fun. There’s something about building something with no stakes attached that reminds me why I started doing this in the first place. Not the delivery, not the approval process, not the logistics of making it all happen on a Saturday. Just the making.
That part is still worth doing.
For the florists reading this
If you’re new and you’re trying to figure out how to build a portfolio and find your people, do the shoots. Say yes to the ones that align with where you want to go creatively. Show up with your best work even when there’s no client paying for it, because that work is what leads to the clients who will.
Pay attention to which vendors you keep wanting to work with again. Those are your people. Build those relationships intentionally. They will carry you further than any marketing strategy or Instagram plan.
And design for yourself when you get the chance. Because your aesthetic is already in there. You just have to make enough things with no one else’s hand in it to finally be able to see it.
If you’re a vendor interested in collaborating on a styled shoot, reach out. I’m always open to the right project with the right team.
And if you’re a couple who found me through a publication feature or styled shoot and you want to talk about your wedding, I’d love to hear about it.
Want to work together? Let’s connect.
Want to see more of the pretty things? Follow me on the gram!
A styled shoot is a planned photo session where wedding vendors collaborate to create a designed scene for portfolio and publication purposes. There’s no real couple or event. Vendors contribute their services in exchange for photographs they can use for marketing. They’re commonly used by florists, photographers, planners, rental companies, and other wedding vendors to build portfolios and connect with collaborators.
Usually through a combination of styled shoots, networking with other vendors, lower budget work to build real wedding experience, and showing up consistently in vendor communities. Styled shoots specifically let florists create the quality of portfolio images they want to attract without waiting for clients at that level to find them first.
Yes, especially early in a business. They build portfolio content, create relationships with collaborators, and give vendors creative freedom to develop and discover their aesthetic without client constraints. The vendors who show up fully even when there’s no paying client tend to be the ones who attract paying clients faster.
Everything and also nothing, in a sense. The logistics and stakes are completely different. There’s no couple, no family, no timeline pressure, no moment that can’t be redone. But the design work is real, the photography is real, and the relationships built are real. The portfolio images look exactly the same to someone scrolling a website.
Wedding vendor Facebook groups, Instagram, local wedding networks, and by reaching out directly to vendors whose work you admire. The best collaborations usually come from genuine connection with people whose aesthetic aligns with yours, not from mass invitations to large groups.
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