Steps to Designing your Wedding!

When helping my clients design their wedding, the very first thing I try to do is to learn a little bit about them. Most of the time, our consultation meeting is our very first meeting. (Much like a blind date – although I am not hard to find at a coffee shop, I usually have a ton of wedding related stuff with me.) In order to learn about my clients, I ask them a variety of questions. Hopefully by sharing these questions, it will help newly engaged couples jump start the design process of their wedding.

1. How did you two meet?
2. What attracted you to each other?
3. What feeling would you like to invoke from your wedding?
4. Can you describe to me what you see when walking into your ceremony/reception venue?
5. What is the most important aspect to your wedding?

Now that you answered and asked each other these questions, here are some of my insights on how to make use of these answers. (No, this is not anything like a Cosmo test.)

The first two questions allow the couple to bring some personal aspects into their wedding. Every wedding should be personalized to the couple. The personal details are what make a wedding special and memorable. Personal details can be used in wedding invitations, ceremony programs, reception stationary, and wedding favors. I believe that a wedding should tell a wonderful love story of the couple.

The third and fourth questions start the design building blocks. I always ask my clients to use descriptive words when answering these questions. From a feeling or visual you can start to choose main wedding colors, secondary wedding colors, textures, and details. Each step of the process, you are adding another layer or element to your wedding.

The last question answers where the main focus of the wedding should be. If the “getting married” is most important, the ceremony vow area should have the most focus and attention. If clients say they want their guests to have a great time, more focus should be placed at the reception or dance or after party. I’ve had brides answer “ME” to this question before. In this case, I tell the bride to buy an awesome wedding gown and beautiful jewellery! You rock it girl!!

Here are some pictures of a very personalized wedding from Style Me Pretty!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I think that Valentine’s Day is the most romantic day of the year. It is a day to celebrate love. I know that a lot of my friends disagree (and are probably rolling their eyes as they are reading this); think it is a day created by Hallmark; and don’t believe in Valentine’s altogether. To those friends I say (with love): You don’t have to believe in Valentine’s Day, just don’t ruin it for the rest of us. We will continue to celebrate this day and most likely show you how much we love you!

When I met with my clients to discuss the design of their wedding, I often try to inject some ideas about how they can start new traditions and celebrate their wedding day in the years to come either on their anniversary date or on Valentine’s Day! (You knew that part was coming!) Here are some of my favorite ideas:

Wedding Day: I suggest that grooms to write a love note to their bride and have it delivered by a groomsman the morning of the wedding. This love note can be short and just relay how excited they are that they will be getting married in a couple of hours. Future Celebrations: Write a love note to your significant other telling them your emotions the morning of your wedding and how reading the love note confirmed your love.

Wedding Day: If my clients plan on having bouquets of flowers as wedding decorations, I suggest buying the very best vase you can afford that also fits in with your home décor. The vase is often overlooked at weddings. You will be surprised how a beautiful vase complements the flowers in it. Future Celebrations: Future flower arrangements received on special days (or just about any day!) can be placed in this special wedding vase. It will give you a quick visual trip down memory lane of your wedding day.

Wedding Day: After the bride has chosen their wedding bouquet, I suggest to grooms that they either study the bouquet or have a picture of the bouquet with them. Future Celebrations: Have the wedding bouquet recreated 100% (have the stems tied together and all) and give that bouquet to your wife. It will be a huge surprise and it honestly won’t cost that much more than a dozen of red roses on Valentine’s Day.

These pictures from One Wed inspire and make me smile! I hope it does the same for you!





Side note: I know that I probably only have two male readers of this blog (both close friends of mine), but if you are bride, start dropping these hints to your fiancé (if I haven’t already done so!)