Where to find Wedding Inspiration | Wedding Planning Wednesday
So, you’re newly engaged and you’re wondering where to find wedding inspiration. Your entire wedding planning process, and every design decision hinges on a central style (or theme, or mood, or feel). The choices you make for your venue, colors, invitations, florals, table settings, desserts, favors, dresses, menswear, etc, are all influenced by your choice of a theme for your day. Of course, you can always spend endless hours on Pinterest, searching through one wedding inspiration board after another hoping to find ideas that tickle your fancy. Maybe you’ve opened that “When that special someone comes around” board you’ve had since Pinterest’s birth and noticed your ideas are all over the place. Have you noticed blog posts on wedding planning websites (like The Knot or Style Me Pretty) that have titles like “50’s Nautical Glam Gold and Blue Wedding on a Sailboat” and wondered how they ever came up with that? Whether you are at a total loss on where to begin, have some ideas about your wedding and aren’t sure how to pull them together, or looking to create a stand out wedding that is uniquely your own; you are in the right place.
The goal here is cohesion. Think of your wedding as a brand. A brand uses fonts, graphic design, colors, textures and words to create a specific feeling or evoke an emotion. You want your wedding to do the same thing for your guests! It does not matter what this central style – or wedding brand – is, only that you have one to guide your design decisions. Ideally, the wedding brand you create will reflect your personalities and your wedding guests will get a feel for who you are just by attending. This blog posts is meant to help you start to build your wedding brand by giving you some ideas on where to find wedding inspiration.
I won’t do the thinking for you, but here are 5 ideas to get your brain jogging on where to find wedding inspiration to build your wedding brand. Happy Planning!
Where to find Wedding Inspiration to Create your Wedding Brand
1. A location
I’m not talking specifically about a wedding venue here, it could be a location anywhere. Think of some of your favorite spots, and jot them down. Your ideas can be as broad or specific as you like. Maybe your favorite place in the whole world is your grandparent’s old farm. You’ll start thinking about the wildflowers growing in the fields, old barn wood, rusted metal, homemade strawberry jam, and plaid tablecloths. Or perhaps you love when the fair comes to town. You’ll think about flashing lights, bright colors, fried food, that classic ‘fair’ font, the pie baking contest, and carnival games. If your favorite place is the beach, the blues and greens of sea glass will come to mind, along with seashells, casual, flowing clothes and a relaxing, carefree atmosphere. See where I’m going with this? Each of your favorite locations has some design elements already in place, that you can adopt for your wedding brand.
2. A Season or Date
Here, think of your favorite times of the year and how they could play into your wedding brand. As well as helping you pick your wedding date, certain seasons or dates may provide inspiration for your stylistic choices as well. Is thanksgiving your favorite? Maybe you’ll decorate with corn, pumpkins, oranges and golds, and you’ll serve dinner family style on long tables. If you love the Fourth of July, perhaps you’ll have your wedding on that date, and have a casual backyard wedding with a BBQ dinner, bright colors, and fireworks to end the night.
3. A Movie, Book, or Song
Movies may be one of the easiest places to find inspiration for a very specific wedding brand, but using a movie as inspiration also takes a lot of finesse and commitment. Think of any movie or TV show that you love. I’ll use The Hunger Games as an example. The artistic director for the movie has already made many of your design choices for you; fonts, words, costume design, colors, textures. This is where the commitment comes into play – choosing something so specific doesn’t leave much wiggle room for other competing ideas. However, the plus side is all the design elements for your wedding brand are already in place, the only thing left to do is implement them. Translating these design elements to the real world is where the finesse comes in. You might use Katniss’ braided hairstyle as inspiration for you and your bridesmaids, arrows in your graphic design, muted tones for colors, and an eclectic vintage design for your table settings. You would probably not divide your tables into districts and then have a reaping at the reception. Okay, yes, this is a crazy example. But, the point is not to directly copy the ideas from a movie, but to subtly involve them in your theme.
4. A Stylistic Era
If you ever thought you were born in the wrong decade, you’ll have the most fun brainstorming ideas from this category. So much inspiration can be drawn from a time in history. The 50’s had rock n’ roll, drive-ins, diners, hot rods, skinny ties, and dresses that highlighted an hourglass shape. The 20’s had speakeasies, flapper dresses, men in vests and flatcaps, and all things glamorous. By using a stylistic era as your focal point for your wedding brand, you could bring you and all your wedding guests back in time for a day. Or, you can use a few of the style elements from an era alongside other inspiration.
5. Your Favorite Things
Think about what makes you and your better half, well, you! It is extremely important these things make their way into your wedding brand in some way or another. If you love road trips, maybe your brand has an adventure or travel themed aspect. If you love reading, maybe some books or quotes from your favorite books are a part of your decor. If the two of you are huge nerds, maybe your entire wedding brand is eclectic fandom references. Whatever it is that you love together, make sure it gets incorporated into your wedding day!