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Read MoreYour Wedding Your Style
Your Wedding Day, now more than ever, is a celebration where you and your's personal style and aesthetic are front and center during the planning. While every wedding is a celebration of love and commitment, romance and passion it is, at the same time, an opportunity to explore your own personal style. From the dress you choose to the venue, flowers, colors and textures there are numerous elements and details that together set a tone for your magical day. This is not to say that your Wedding Day is a time where you are glamorizing your personality but it is a moment where your personal style and design sense set a tone and mood for your family and friends alike. Whether Rustic-Chic, Vintage, Modern, Classic or Luxurious your wedding design is a memory that will last a lifetime, the chance to define a style that evokes comfort and love, togetherness and fun, playfulness and romance. Creating your wedding day design shouldn't be difficult or intimidating. How do you begin? The easiest answer (selfishly on my part) is to hire a Wedding Designer like myself that will guide you through the decisions - but at the end of the day you still have to make choices that you are pleased with that develop your design. So, take a look at these few factors that will help you easily find the style that best suits you and your partner, fit with the season and best celebrate your personal taste and relationship that you will share for a lifetime to come.
1. Seasonality - What time of year have you chosen for your Wedding Day? Season's are one of the simplest factors to consider when determining your wedding style. Each season has it's own innate color palette and textural scheme that can easily lead to a complete style. Spring, with soft and cool colors lend easily to a romantic or vintage palette while the vibrant jewel tones that Summer brings can evoke a more playful, casual tone. Fall is quickly recognized with warm hues like burnished oranges and hazy greens that can lead to a more rustic approach while Winter identified with its cooler icy blues and whites and cloudy merlot can be a sophisticated style blending vintage and rustic into a gorgeous design. Every season sets a mood without a lot of effort, stay true to the colors and tones that each evoke and a style will begin to design itself.
2. Theme or Mood - What mood do you want to evoke with your design? Calm and Tranquil, Vibrant and Boistrous, Romantic and Vintage, Warm and Cozy or Modern and Youthful - mood may not be the first thing you think of when planning your wedding. Theme may be a more common way of thinking, but personally I don't like to think of events in terms of a theme simply because that can become too obvious and contrived, developing a style with limited "themed" objects and elements. As an event designer, when developing an event's style, I want to know what mood or tone we are setting for your guests. Of course all weddings are a celebration and party but the mood will give that celebration its unique style. A mood can be Fun and Playful like a backyard "Picnic Style" - this would define the style as easy and casual, loose and airy maybe colorful and playful. Other's may want a Sophisticated and Formal mood; a Black Tie Affair where the details would be ornate, elegant and luxurious with perhaps large and elegant floral and elements of crystal and glass. Of course, there are numerous Moods in between, Rustic - Chic, Vintage, Nautical Beach, Modern Lounge or Romantic Elegance. Making a list of adjectives that you want your day to evoke is a simple way to determine what Mood you want to set ultimately defining your style.
3. Venue - The location of your Ceremony and Reception are obviously a vital influence in the design process. Taking into consideration the location of your celebration will immediately lead you to a style and may dictate colors and details that you select. If you choose an Historic Mansion with gilded details and ornate elements you have already begun to define your style. Using more formal touches, sophisticated textures and elegant floral arrangements probably all lend themselves more easily to the existing surroundings of the venue. If, however you have selected a rustic Barn or Backyard as your reception location then a more casual, less formal style is appropriate. The venue will always have elements, textures, colors, architectural details and style specific to it that will help guide your choices.
4. Culture - You and your partner's heritage, cultural obligations and religious beliefs will lead you to an array of style decisions. I have designed Indian Weddings that combine traditional Indian Heritage & Cultural Needs with Western Family Traditions. The Indian culture is naturally vibrant, colorful and full of jewel tones with many ceremonial traditions and elements. Together with floral, these cultural elements and objects are a significant piece in the Wedding Celebration, thus impacting directly the design plan. Other cultures and religions may or may not involve such important pieces but still may add to your ultimate style. Whether a Chuppa or Alter, there is plenty of room for stylized choices.