Curating Your Wedding Style on Style Me Pretty
I have to admit that I was pinning and blogging wedding inspiration long before I had a ring on my finger. The wedding industry is filled with so much creativity and beauty, so there has been a lot of bridal-related content that has found its way onto my inspiration boards over the years, and many project details that have been drawn from weddings and styled shoots alike.
A lot of the work I do, and even the online course that I’ve developed, has to do with defining visual strategies, and whether it’s for a brand design or a suite of custom styled content, this often involves the process of taking a dreamy inspiration board and determining how we can pull themes and details from it in order to have a clearer sense of the direction we’re going in and bring that vision to life.
It dawned on me pretty early in the wedding planning process that there might be some overlap in my creative process. Whereas in the branding world we’re trying to ensure that there’s a certain level of visual cohesiveness at every brand touchpoint, a wedding isn’t so different, as we want to be able to pull together all the different pieces of what makes a wedding so special — the colour palette, invitations, floral design, tablescape details, dream dress, and the list goes on — to create our own story that’s woven throughout.
The question, of course, is how exactly we do that, which is exactly what I've shared in my most recent post on Style Me Pretty, in an abbreviated and wedding-specific version of my own creative process. The easy part is pinning all the beautiful images you love, the hard part is finding the common ties and creating a vision of your own. Or — a visual strategy, if you will.
I've outlined the three steps I've gone through over there, but I thought I would also use this opportunity to provide a quick update as to a few of the details for my own wedding that have started to come together.
The main theme that emerged for me after going through this process was what I’ve started to think of as “enchanted disco forest”. Knowing that our wedding is taking place at our family cottage in an outdoor setting, it’s important to us that we complement the venue instead of fighting it, while still incorporating that dreamy, whimsical style that I love.
As you're probably well aware, I have a longstanding love affair with disco balls, and alongside the silvery hints that I started to notice in my inspiration, it seemed like an obvious detail to incorporate. I love contradictions in styling details, so the idea of incorporating the sparkly, celebratory disco balls in an outdoor setting with a tangle of wild greenery is totally up my alley, and a DIY challenge that I can’t wait to take on. Early on in this process I had also found a set of vintage, hand-painted swan favours that felt like a nod to the enchanted forest theme with their fairytale-worthy quality, so those will also be making an appearance, likely as part of the table design.
Keeping the colour palette fairly neutral seemed like the way to go, with lots of natural, sheer textures and nods to the night sky with the constellation and star details that would also be mimicked in the silver accents. This is where hints of those dove greys, pale lavender purples and periwinkle blues would also start to show up, which we’ll be seeing hints of in ribbon detailing on the tables and florals, in the invitations, bridesmaids dresses and even in my custom dress design that I’m working with Breeyn McCarney on.
Though I love a colourful bouquet, we felt like going for a more greenery-focused, wild design for florals made more sense, and instead of anything that looks too “done”, we’re working closely with Becky of Blush and Bloom to incorporate floral elements in unexpected ways throughout the day that feel more like they’re part of the location than anything. Think floral installations as opposed to traditional bouquets.
With the day now less than five months away, it's all starting to feel very real all of a sudden.
Styling and Photography: Studio Bicyclette // Bridal Shoes and Purse: Charlotte Mills // Custom Dress Design: Breeyn McCarney // Vintage Swans: Snowdrop and Company