Find Your Inspiration

While planning your wedding every Bride and Groom will have a moment when they discover how much can be done to really incorporate their personalities into the tiny details of their wedding. With Pinterest and Etsy becoming such huge markets in our everyday lives it's hard not to find the perfect inspiration for your special day.

One of the best ways to get inspiration from some of the leading industry professionals or even brides is to read Wedding Blogs. Now don't get me wrong there are A LOT of blogs out there, and Wedding Blogs are no exception, but it is a fantastic source of information. When it comes to creating the perfect look to avoid a "cookie cutter" wedding, researching blogs is a great way to go.

I have been designing Wedding Invitations for years now, but it is only since I started planning my own wedding that I realized how much information is floating around the web for those of us who want to create an experience for our wedding guests. It's not just about "hosting a wedding" anymore. More and more couples want to make their weddings something to remember. A way for their guests to connect with them on a new and even more personal level.

Themes are a major part of making that happen. If you are thinking, "Well my fiance and I haven't picked a theme," don't worry. You probably have one and don't even realize it. You don't have to choose Gatsby, Country, Hollywood Glam or any other generalized themes to have an amazing event. You can decide the colors of your wedding will be your theme, or even just how you want your guests to feel while they are there. Most importantly, how you and your fiance want to feel while you are there. My fiance and I took awhile to figure out what "theme" we wanted for our upcoming wedding. It went from just using the colors to Disney (since we are having our wedding in Disney World) to Enchanted Forest, until one day we sat down and talked about what we really wanted. What we found was that all we both wanted was for our family and friends to have a good time. We want them to feel relaxed and happy and overall just enjoy the experience of spending time with us while we celebrate our marriage to each other and the uniting of our families. When we both realized it was more of a feeling we wanted to portray, everything started to fall into place. Yes we will make sure our colors are represented, and we will incorporate Disney in our own creative way, but mostly we just wanted to be able to have fun and not become one of those couples that get extremely stressed out. Because of this new revelation we landed on an almost Bohemian Rustic theme that completely encompasses how we want our wedding to look and feel. You can obviously see that "Bohemian Rustic" isn't an "actual" theme, but when planning your wedding why not make up what you want instead of conforming to an overall idea. I'm not saying that if you like the theme Hollywood Glam you shouldn't do that, but make it your own. Add little touches that make it about you and your fiance, and not just about the theme.

Some great ways to add little touches start with your Engagement Party Invitations. Depending upon how quickly you and your fiance land on a "theme" you can incorporate it right from the start. If you only have colors, you can make sure that is prominent on your invitation. Even the fonts you use can tell a great deal about the event you are hosting. The more formal the font, the more formal the event is believed to be. From here you can have custom Save the Dates made. Many photographers will offer their standard Save the Dates when you book a session with them, but always ask if there is a more customized option. If not then finding vendors, like us, to create what you are looking for is a great option. Here is where Etsy can be really helpful as well.

Now it's time for you to look for your wedding invitations. Do you want them to be traditional, modern, a little bit of both? Many brides and grooms get overwhelmed when it comes to this part of the decision making. There are thousands of places you can get your inviations made, from massive corporate operations to small businesses and even DIY websites. I suggest from experience, if you are not a hugely crafty person, DIY is not the way to go. There are many things that go into creating your invitation and when things go wrong it can add a whole bunch of stress that you don't need. Applying your DIY self to other projects to save money can help you afford to have a professional take over the stress of making your wedding invitations. Plus, your wedding invitations do not have to break the bank. There are so many places that will charge you outlandish prices for their services, but to brides and grooms like you and me it's just paper that will be thrown away (except for the one you decide to keep for yourself of course).

There are SO many ways Invitations can portray your personalities. To list them all would be crazy, but some examples are: the envelope colors, your pocket-folds (if you choose this type of invitation), the shape of your invitation, your fonts, embellishments, and so much more. When choosing someone to craft your wedding invitations from scratch these are all things you can mention to them. If they are really good they should be asking you. One major thing that is important to remember is that everything looks different on a computer, a tablet and a phone than it does in real life. You should always ask for a hard copy proof before you start printing the final design.

Finally, your reception holds many opportunities for you and your fiance to add little touches to represent your personalities. One major way to do this is with your table numbers. You do not have to do the traditional square number sticking up from a metal stand if you do not want to. Yes your venue will most likely offer this to you as part of your package, but if you want to get creative you can do all sorts of things for your table numbers. A popular trend that seems to be taking off is using photos of you and your fiance at different ages to represent the table number. This is a great way to personalize your reception. Another way is with your escort cards. Everyone knows when you go to wedding you get a tiny folded piece of paper with your name and table number on it, but why not do something a bit different? Instead of everyone getting another paper they will ultimately throw away, why not create a display featuring the tables with each name listed beneath it? You can treat this like a piece of art by framing it, designing it to match your invitations, or even adding photos.

I could go on for days on how you could make your wedding day even more special with dozens of little touches, but ultimately it is up to each of us to find our own inspiration. To make our wedding day feel more like us than a "cookie cutter" event we are tasked with attending. It is always better to create a look that incorporates you and your fiance, from Engagement to Reception (and even the Thank You cards).