Defining Your Wedding Day Floral Style

Once you've gotten your venue booked and your wedding style decided, its time to fuse those two and decide on your décor design. The optimal goal in design is to encapsulate elements from many sources:

Venue ~ what does the room look like? What elements should you play to? Is it formal/informal? Is it light and airy or dark and romantic? How does the location play into the venue? Is there a ton of history or something that the area is well known for?

Wedding Dress ~ is your wedding dress modern or vintage? Beaded or not? Is it body hugging or more princessy?

Bridesmaid Dresses ~ what color is their dress? Are the girls all wearing the same outfit, or different?

Couple Wedding Style ~ are you really into flowers or not? Do you want something sophisticated, elegant, modern or over the top? Do you prefer non floral elements like berries & fruits? Are you more ethereal and into candles to set the mood?

These are all questions that will come into play as you decide on your décor design. Weddings are meant to be cohesive (i.e. have some element that runs throughout from your Save the Dates/Invites through to the end of the wedding evening), therefore, what can you do in the design concept to run throughout the wedding experience?

Amass your inspiration boards, cut outs and other items that you love into a large collection. Spend time with each image ~ what do you love about it? When you start to meet with Florists, bring a list of Flowers you love (and that are hopefully in season when you are getting married) as well as a list of flowers you dislike. Bring your images to show what you like ... even if it's a simple detail like the color of a ribbon ~ your florist can find inspiration in that. Remember that you have time and you can change the elements if you find something better for your taste.






(sorry ~ i scanned these in and forgot to tag where I found them. If you know, PLEASE tell me so I can give full credit ~ thanks!)

This post was originally published on June 9th, 2009

Determining Your Wedding Day Style

Style is an individual experience. Your personal style and your soon to be's personal style may be similar and it may be very different. The one thing that is a definite though, is that you need to find YOUR wedding style. Something that captures and embodies what you want the wedding to be. Whether it is a traditional or modern feeling, a specific theme, something beachy, fun, city like or rustic and charming, spend time with your soon to be and put thought into your wedding style. Start by defining your personal couple style. Next, start to think about how you visualize the wedding day. What does the alter look like? How do you feel when you walk into the reception? What is the goal for the evening? Does the venue or area you've chosen elude to a specific style or theme? Once you've picked a style, start researching that style on blogs, in magazines and in life. Clip images of things you like. All this information will help your vendors enormously when it comes time to design the wedding day.






(courtesy of Martha Stewart Weddings)



This post was originally published on June 6th, 2009

Wedding Inspiration Overload

I've written several posts about finding your wedding style and wedding inspiration, but I want to revisit this topic. There are a million and one fabulous wedding websites and blogs to whet the appetite. So many ideas, images, colors, thoughts ~ so overwhelming! When you're pulling together images that you love and would love for your wedding day - par down. Remember the saying, less is more? I recently went through a business development exercise that I am convinced would work wonders for wedding planning. The exercise was to show what you wanted your business to look like through images. Pick 10 to 15 images that represent how you want your business to look like. Much easier said than done BUT the limitations of 10 to 15 made it so much easier to discard the images that didn't connect or that really didn't have a place in my business inspiration board. Not every image or idea is applicable to my business, just like not every image or idea is applicable to your wedding.

Take the concept of the 10-15 images and create your specific wedding inspiration board. The more specific you can be with your images, the more put together and cohesive your wedding will look on the big day. Remember, less is more, and while you've probably pulled 100's of images, go through and really note what you like about the image - if its only a simple aspect of it {the color, one item etc}, write it down and pull the image out of the pile. Your finalized 'board' should tell a specific story of your wedding day.

Developing Your Wedding Day "Theme"

While you don't need to "theme" your wedding {i.e. Sandra and Billy's BBQ Throwdown}, it is good to have some sort of vision / theme for your day. While you don't want everything to be matchy matchy, you want the entire look of your wedding day to have some underlying element that gives it cohesion. Whether its a color, motif, logo, flower, you name it, it should be reflected in most aspects of the day. But ... that doesn't give you license to just use anything. Use something that makes sense to your union. I once attended a wedding where the couple had stamped a bicycle on everything: invitations, programs, menu cards, place cards ... neither of them were bicycle enthusiasts and I have no clue what the bicycle meant. I actually still have no clue and my sister in law has tried a million times to give me some clarity on it to no avail.

Anyways ... having some direction stylistically will be an immense help when choosing your decor. While your vision in no means needs to be carefully thought out and presented, it does need to have some meat behind it.

Par Example:





Style notes: warm tones, romantic candlelight, low and lush, rustic, country feel

When you find inspirational images you love, take a moment to write some notes about what you love about the image. These notes will serve as a great foundation to create your wedding day look!

{images from kimgray.co.za}

Day 6: Sophisticated, Elegant, Classy, Fun, Casual ... What's Your Wedding Style?

Day 6: 30 Days: A Guide to Stress Free Wedding Planning

Style is an individual experience. Your personal style and your soon to be's personal style may be similar and it may be very different. The one thing that is a definite though, is that you need to find YOUR wedding style. Something that captures and embodies what you want the wedding to be. Whether it is a traditional or modern feeling, a specific theme, something beachy, fun, city like or rustic and charming, spend time with your soon to be and put thought into your wedding style. Start by defining your personal couple style. Next, start to think about how you visualize the wedding day. What does the alter look like? How do you feel when you walk into the reception? What is the goal for the evening? Does the venue or area you've chosen elude to a specific style or theme? Once you've picked a style, start researching that style on blogs, in magazines and in life. Clip images of things you like. All this information will help your vendors enormously when it comes time to design the wedding day.






(courtesy of Martha Stewart Weddings)

Style? Whats that?

Regardless of whether or not you think you have style, you do. So does your mate. And, you and your mate have a style that distinctly defines you as a couple. Now, all you have to do is identify that style and then use it to help create your wedding style. And now you're saying "How in the world do I do that?"

Easy. Look at your home and your closet. What colors and textures are there? How would you describe your home? Vintage, Modern, Traditional, Romantic, Stark, Minimalist? What type of restaurants do you frequent? Trendy, Sophisticated, Small and Cozy? Where do you like to vacation? Beaches, Ski Lodges, Cities? What do you and your mate like to spend time doing? Cooking, reading, hiking, sports, traveling? All of these elements add up to create your defining style as a couple! (Obviously this is a small smattering of places to find your style - look everywhere!)

Now, take a few of those style elements and think about how you want to apply them to your wedding style. If you love the look of vintage glam, go for vintage vases to hold your centerpieces or wear a vintage dress. If you love cooking, really invest time and your budget into finding a phenomenal caterer and create a really scrumptious menu. There are literally 100's of ways for you to infuse your 'couple style' into your wedding - it doesn't necessarily have to be in every element of the wedding, but can be subtle and small. Anything at the wedding (your pick for your first dance, the choice of ribbon on your bouquet, the color tie he wears) can be representative of your style.

Lastly, a tidbit of advice that I swear by: create an inspiration board. I am a visual and hands on person, so for me, I tear pictures out of magazines and print things out like a mad woman to create my inspiration board for each wedding that I work on. It can be a picture of flowers, a cute favor idea, a swatch of fabric, websites that you love and adore, anything. Keep it all in one place and bring it to every vendor meeting. You never know which image will be a source of inspiration!

Happy Planning!
-Lisa