Outdoor Rooftop Wedding Inspiration

Outdoor rooftop-styled wedding shoot has beautiful decor, pastel colors, culture, and a stunning skyline view.

Amidst the difficulties of 2020, wedding planners Samiya Brasfield and Umal Vara decided to team up to create a project promoting positivity and love. The pair hoped to inspire others and create a shoot “that stood out against all that [they] were seeing” in the world. For their team, it was also important to represent diversity within their field and highlight each other’s talents.

Working within the competitive wedding industry, both acknowledge “it isn’t every day you see collaboration be placed over the competition…”. But showcasing each other’s work and building each other up is far more important to these two. For them, “creating an opportunity to show those around them that two strong, talented women in the same field of work can come together on a project is alway crucial.”

Collaborating with some of the most talented and diverse vendors in the industry (including a real married model couple!), Samiya and Vara created a wedding space to bring people of different ethnicities and races together. And the end result is quite stunning! Set against the Forth Worth city skyline at the PalmWood Event venue, you can truly feel the love.

For more on this outdoor rooftop-styled wedding, keep scrolling below.

Date of shoot: November 12, 2020
Theme: Intimate outdoor rooftop wedding
Venue: PalmWood Event venue, Fort Worth Texas

The inspiration…

As 2020 brought the world to a stop and postponed (or even cancelled) many weddings, Vara and Samiya wanted to bring their teams together and create something positive.

So, to find inspiration for their project, they hosted a mood board competition and Veronica Gaskey was the winner! When asked about her inspiration, her explanation is quite poignant of the times.

She says, “2020 broke all the rules with what a wedding is supposed to be and really forced couples to reach beyond the ideology of normal and create something that works for their love – without rules. When developing a visual representation of how best to capsulize what that conveys, I reached for elements that were both fierce…yet forgiving…vibrant…yet hushed, whimsical yet regal…”.

The bride…

The groom…

The couple…

This shoot was made even more special by having a real married couple, Der’Rikk and Rasha Thompson, as models.

The couple first met through Instagram. At the time, Der’Rikk took a leap of faith and sent Rasha, a complete stranger, a message expressing his sincere desire to meet her. To his surprise, Rasha responded. And the pair began a two-month back-and-forth over the phone before they finally met in person for coffee.

On their first date, they “laughed about their fear of being catfished.” As the saying goes, from that point, the rest is history!

Almost a year after they first met, Der’Rikk proposed to Rasha. The couldn’t wait to start their lives together! After a short six-month engagement and multiple modifications due to COVID, they were married on July 19, 2020.

The team…

Samiya and Vara curated a creative team of vendors together that have and have not worked together before. They all came together and created an amazing shoot filled with so much love and passion.

The sweet details…

Cocktail hour…

The process…

For Vara and Samiya, the shoot was “an amazing creative experience!”

“We started with a fun colorful yet regal day time look and moved into a classic velvet black and ivory look for the evening Lehenga. The couple’s love was beaming with the skyline all day and evening long.”