STORIES FROM THE SET: RANCH ROMANCE

All photoshoots are a bit of smoke and mirrors and some element of playing pretend. Let’s just say on the Ranch Romance shoot, the ranch was real, the romance was not.

“Well, Kaylin’s ‘beau’ was actually her brother!” Cheryl laughed. “Just goes to show what professionals they are, right? They’ve both been modeling their whole lives, like since they were little bitty children, and they both happened to be available on those days, so we asked them if it’d be weird and they said ‘nah’, and so we went with it. I mean, I think the most ‘romantic’ thing they had to do was him picking her up at one point. And of course, Sam and Lozzie have known each other for years, their ‘ranch romance’ wasn’t real either!”

That’s right, the other darling dude in the catalog was our own Sam Matusek, Cheryl’s youngest son – you can read all about his experience in his Q&A.

As we’ve come to expect, the weather threw us a curveball once again.

“It was windy, freezing, and trying to rain,” Cheryl recalled. “And the girls were doing their best to pretend it was a sultry summer day, poor Lozzie even having to do that swimming scene in the horse tank! They pulled it off, and looking at the photos, you’d be none the wiser, but NOBODY was having a good time!”

You know what WAS a good time, though? The honkytonk scenes! Not only were we sheltered from the weather, but we had a fun group (including our marketing gal Courtney Greener’s husband and his bestie) and we might’ve let them drink a couple of the prop beers. Since the bar was closed, we took turns living out our best Coyote Ugly dreams.

“Oh, there was bar dancing!” laughed Mitchell. “Not like dancing IN the bar, dancing ON the bar – full on Coyote Ugly style, it was great! I mean, everybody’s wanted to do that at some point in their life, right?”

If you’re thinking that sounds dangerous, rest assured, it wasn’t anywhere near the most dangerous thing that went on behind the scenes.

“So, my video guy brought his Segway,” Mitchell explained. “And let me tell you, they’re a whole lot harder to ride than they look! I think pretty much all of us took a turn – we couldn’t help ourselves – and I think every single one of us almost faceplanted. Sam almost ate it several times. They may look silly, but they’re serious!”

Speaking of clumsiness and calamity, we also a had a little culvert mishap, resulting in a gash on the inside of one of Audrey’s tires. Whoops! (Shout out to Lantz Tire for getting us fixed up!)

Needless to say, this one was one for the books!