Creating the beautiful wedding you deserve is so much easier when your vision is clear. You should produce a broken down design brief, highlighting the style you would like to acheive for each area of your wedding and how. In this blog I will talk you through the process step by step...
First things first, you need to decide on your colour palette! This will effect how you style the rest of your wedding. Do you want your palette to be soft and neautral, or vibrant and colourful? Is there one specific colour you adore and want to home in on, or can you create a range colours that compliment each other? Do you want your metals like cutlery and candle holders to be silver or gold? Do you want a more rustic, outdoorsy feel with natural woods featuring throughout the design, or must everything be on a clean, white canvas? These are the types of things you need to consider here.
Now that you have your colour palette sorted, I would move onto the flowers, one of my favourite parts of a wedding! You can break this down into bouquets/button holes, table arrangements and additional decoration. The flowers should carry the same theme through all of these, so what will this look like? Traditional English countryside? Wild and romantic (my favourite)? Full Bohemian pampas and other dried flowers? What type of bouquet do you want? A hand-tied, posy or waterfall bouquet perhaps? Look through images on platforms like Pinterest and Instagram to see what draws you in. Save these photos and use them as examples to refer back to.
Make 4 seperate pages for the ceremony, drinks reception, wedding breakfast and evening reception, and write down everything that you evision. Use this to idea dump anything you may have thought of. What would you like to see and how would you like it presented? Are you going to hire in additional furniture, or maybe replace all of the wooden chairs for ghost chairs? Alongside each page create a brainstorm of images to illustrate all of this. You will start to see your design forming and notice what will and won't work together.
Now think about your place settings. This can either be very simple, or a work of art, depending on your style and budget. Would you like to hire in charger plates? These come in all kinds of different colours, shapes and sizes. Are you happy with the standard cutlery and/or glassware provided by the venue, or can you upgrade this to something a bit more luxury? What texture of napkins would you like and how do you want them folded? Of course, ensure the colours are inkeeping with your palette!
Moving on to stationery. Some couples may decide to design and print themselves, while others can afford to hire a professional stationer to do this for them. Remember, invitations are the first glimpse guests get into what kind of day your wedding is going to be. What feel do you want it to give them? It would make little sense to send out luxury, romantic invites, when you are planning a rustic, barn venue wedding! Look into the different types of paper that can be used. The different types of printing and hand written calligraphy that can be done. You would be amazed at all the options that are now available.
Lastly - attire. You may not want to include your bridal gown ideas here as it might be a surprise. You might also surprise yourself with what you like when you walk into the dress shop. This section is mainly for the bridesmaids dresses and groomsman suits. What colour do you want them all to be? Do you want the bridemaids to wear the same dress or in different styles? What would suit your besties, and what would suit your day?
You should now have a much clearer understanding of the look you are aiming for and what type of suppliers you are going to need to source. When you are struggling to make design decisions, refer back to the brief and think, "what would work best here?"
As always, if you need any further advice on this, or would like to enquire about my services, then please do get in touch.
XxxFJ.