How to Choose Your Wedding Style
’Tis the season for weddings and what better time to find inspiration for planning your own special day. The easiest way to plan a wedding that feels cohesive and represents your personality is to choose an overall concept that you can carry throughout the entire planning process. Deciding on a central theme or specific aesthetic will simplify your decision making process once you realize the limitless number of options available in planning every detail of a wedding.
Try to envision the overall picture of your wedding day, the mood you want to foster, and the aesthetic you want memorialized in your photos and videos. It is important to have an idea of how you want your wedding to look before you start deciding on your wardrobe options, visiting the jewelry store, reserving bands, tasting cakes, or making guest lists.
To find your personal wedding style and plan the wedding of your dreams, follow these three simple steps to get started.
1. Collect inspiration.
Even if you already have specific images in your mind, finding outside inspiration will help you in bringing all the details to life. Spend some leisure time browsing bridal publications, books, blogs, and wedding photography sites to gain a clearer picture of what you want and do not want at your wedding celebration. But don’t limit your sources of inspiration to wedding specific sites or resources. You might find inspiration is less apparent places like a wallpaper pattern, the intricate design of a perfume bottle, or an exhibition in an art museum.
You can also use fabric swatches, color chips, stationery, and various other trinkets in the planning of your wedding aesthetic. Create an inspiration board to gather all of your ideas into one organized place. Once you begin adding your ideas to your inspiration board, you will also begin to recognize recurring themes that appeal to you. Once you have decided on your overall theme, you will be able to more clearly visualize how the various components of your celebration will come together as one cohesive whole.
2. Decide how formal you want be.
Setting the dress code right from the start will help you in deciding on the level of formality for all of the remaining wedding details. How dressy do you want your guests to be? Do you want to host a fancy sit down dinner where your guests are dressed in formal attire? Or maybe you prefer a more casual and relaxed vibe for a less formal buffet style dinner.
The location and venue for your wedding will also influence your style aesthetic and the level of formality required. For example, a beach wedding will foster a more casual atmosphere while a ballroom venue would beg for a more traditional formal wedding style.
Whether you opt for a low key poolside picnic, a formal ball that lasts all night, or a quiet casual dinner party, remember to incorporate your own personal style in a way that creates an ambience that reflects you as a couple. Regardless of the level of formality that you choose, make sure that you maintain that throughout all of the wedding details from your invitations to the favors that guests take home with them.
3. Choose your colors.
Choosing your specific color scheme will not only bring more of your personality into your planning but it will also help tie together your whole style aesthetic into one consistent theme. Once you have chosen your desired color palette, incorporate it into your wedding website, your bridesmaid gowns, and your overall wedding decor.
If you are unsure which color scheme you would like for your big day, consult a color wheel and see which hues and shades catch your eye and appeal to you most. Choosing one main color with one or two accent colors is the easiest way to bring all of your wedding elements together cohesively. You could opt for one big bold color with a few equally prominent and complimentary colors for a vibrant and cheerful contrast or you may prefer to combine more subtle hues and neutral shades for a toned day simple and classic feel. Whichever color palette you choose, do not be afraid to add other elements of interest like metallic accents or subtle prints.
Throughout the entire planning process, the most important thing to keep in mind is that this is your big day. You should choose the things that make you happy and are most reflective of you and your partner and your relationship.
Congratulations and happy planning!
Keeping it on the edge,
Shelbee
Joining these Fabulous Link Parties.
shelbeeontheedge@gmail.com
I am a midlife woman, wife, and stay-at-home mother of 2 boys and 2 cats. I have a passion for helping other women feel fabulous in the midst of this crazy, beautiful life.
6 Comments
Heather Noire
Such a great post. Love all off the helpful info.
https://www.bauchlefashion.com/2022/05/summers-edition-mays-hottest-style-drops.html?m=1
shelbeeontheedge@gmail.com
Heather, thanks so much! I really appreciate that. I hope you are enjoying the weekend!
xoxo
Shelbee
Marsha Banks
Well, 46 years ago tonight, I went to bed thinking about my wedding the next day! Imagine…you were what? About 2 or 3 when I got married! I bought my dress (on layaway) a year before we got married. And, it had long sleeves! We got married in June without an air conditioned church! I picked out a picture of my cake from a magazine, and the result was the ugliest cake ever to grace a table! I really wanted to carry roses (my maiden name is Rose), but the florist talked me out of it by telling me they sold more roses for funeral displays! I carried spider mums which were pretty, but they weren’t roses! My daughter’s wedding, in contrast, was everything she ever wanted because the same person paid for hers…me!!!
Thanks for a fun read and a trip down Memory Lane!
shelbeeontheedge@gmail.com
Oh my gosh, Marsha, I just laughed so hard at this comment! You are so fun and so funny! Why did your cake turn out so ugly? I want to see it! And long sleeves in June with no air conditioning…oh my! When I was planning my first wedding, I remember fighting about my flower choices with my MIL. First, I should clarify, when my MIL was planning my first wedding, the only thing I really cared to pick was my dress, my bridesmaids dresses, my flowers, and the date. I wanted a winter wedding which the MIL completely shot down and refused. So we got married on the first day of spring in a giant debilitating snow and ice storm! Haha. My bridesmaids wore dark emerald green velvet burnout tea length dresses and I wanted my flowers to be a burst of vibrant colors. My MIL emphatically stated that a rainbow colors would not match the green dresses! I was so confused because all the flowers have green leaves, how could they not match green dresses?! I got my rainbow flowers because I stood firm and then I let her pick everything else from the venue to the cake to the food to the guest list to the items on our registry to our honeymoon destination. I had no say until I said no more 2 1/2 years later and divorced the whole family! Well, that also was a fun trip down memory lane!
xoxo
Shelbee
CraftAtticResources
I was fortunate that DH and I paid for and then planned the wedding we wanted so I have no complaints many years later.
Having attended a few weddings pre-Covid years I would say while it is up to the couple getting married to have the day of their dreams it is also wise to consider the needs of the guests being invited. If you are planning an outdoor wedding in the middle of what can be predicted to be a hot summer day and you are inviting older guests they do need some place to get cooled off and hydrated. I have older in-laws and this has been an issue a few times where they wanted to be there to support people on their big day but heat stroke is not a risk people should need to take to support the bride and groom. Having to resort to putting people in cars with coolers of water in the back is not the best solution.
shelbeeontheedge@gmail.com
Thanks so much for sharing about your wedding experiences and for pointing out the importance of the comfort and safety of your guests. I imagine that is a much overlooked point so I am really happy that you brought it up. I remember being a guest at an outdoor summer wedding many years ago and the best man passed out from heat stroke at the altar in the middle of the ceremony. That was pretty crazy. He was only in his 20s so I can’t imagine how awful it must have been for the elderly guests. Apparently, the young bride and groom did not consider that. But they also ran out of food and about 1/3 of their guests never even got to eat. So poor planning all around!
xoxo
Shelbee