Contest: Sephora
It’s giveaway time! This one is a bit more of a challenge…
First, the question…as a bride or a groom, where do you find your inspiration?
See, although this is a wedding blog, this blog is ultimately about inspiration. It is about those everyday details that when brought together, create something spectacular. I find inspiration in the most mundane things…the hummingbird that sometime floats by my window, the incredible antiques that my grandfather restored, the great magazines & books that I spend way too much money on. I find inspiration in architecture and artwork, in clothing and in nature. I will be the first to admit that I find it on television, on the web, inside of stores, outside of stores, traveling and staying put. I find it everywhere.
And that is why I have created this site… I believe that design, and specifically wedding design, doesn’t have to be common. I believe that a wedding can be built from odds and ends that when put together help to tell your story. I believe that each wedding should be completely unique and never redundant, and that there really is no such thing as a cookie cutter wedding. Because at the end of the day, it was yours…inspired by the colors you love, by the styles and designs that make you swoon.
And so I ask you, where do you find your inspiration? Further, how do you hope to translate that inspiration into the wedding of your dreams? Hope, being the key word here…as I know, it is so much easier said than done. For the person that comes up with the best answer, I will send a $50 gift certificate from my beloved store, Sephora. I can’t wait to hear your responses! The contest will end tomorrow evening at 9PM.
And, finally, for your reading pleasure…here are some of the places that I find the MOST inspiring. These are the places that color, texture and well thought out ideas really thrive.
Domino Magazine & Domino’s Resource Guide
Oh Joy! Blog, specifically the Here Comes the Bride section
Design Sponge Blog
Splendora and specifically, the SF Bridal Section
Daily Candy and specifically, the wedding guides
I hope this reading material will get you through your Monday!
My inspiration comes from our ceremony and reception venue, the Smith-Appleby House. It was originally built in the 1600s and has housed five generations of the Smith-Appleby families, making for a wonderful historic atmosphere that I hope to infuse with some newer ideas to breathe life into the event. I've been involved with the Smith-Appleby House since I was a baby (my parents are members of the historical society) and I've always loved browsing through the old photographs that are housed in the museum on the grounds... the classic style and personality of each female member of the Smith-Appleby family has helped me to define the style of our wedding. Simplicity, elegance, and a little bit of mischief and wit are going to characterize our day, from the twinkling candlelight shining from mason jars all over the grounds, to the chandeliers adorning the clear tent, and finally to the Jones soda labeled with photos us that will serve as table numbers. With our love as our guide and the Smith-Appleby House as our inspirations, I know that our wedding will be a true showcase of our individual personalities, our love for each other, and the life we hope to create together.
I find my wedding inspiration in pictures. Not printed pictures per se but mental pictures that i have taken of places we have been. The happy memories really/places we were happy. And for our wedding specifically i find inspiration in the outdoors. The trees the animals the landscapes. Where were we happy and what did it look like? Our journey as a couple inspires our wedding.
My inspiration....well I'm going to have to get a little sappy for a minute and say my man. Before I met him, he was really involved in swing dancing and since we've been dating he has opened up a whole era of inspiration to me. More than anything I love blending the cool, chic of past decades with current colors and themes of today. The greatest gift I can give to him is to center our day around the swing band that he has dreamed of for so long.
In order to blend styles from the 20s and 30s I look at a lot of pictures from that era to help me get a good gage of style. Actaully, people's blogs have been the most help to me for getting fresh new ideas (espcially this one)!
my inspiration | my life. so generic, i know...but when i dream about my (our) big day, i think how i want to be happiest, in my element -- so truly me! truly me is not a corset, or a big hoopskirt...it's drowning in flattering (but) comfortable jersey or gorgette silk (sp?) i feel there are so many more modern textiles that speak to our modern movement, without looking like judy jetson. also, i think about my own every day (bargain) shopping, and in this day and age, i can't bear to spend more than necessary on wedding details. but that does NOT mean it can't still be fabulous (StyleMePretty has helped me belive that!) the final detail to my 'outfit' for the big day, which then speaks to the mode and feeling for the rest of the wedding (cuz it really is all about the bride, right?) is a vintage lace veil (the kind that casually sits on a brides head, pinned by discrete pins...hinting at the old Roman Catholic tradition of having veiled women during mass... this i hope to borrow from my grandmother, then walk down the same aisle my mother did... almost 40 years ago: Sacred Heart Basilica, Newark NJ. Someday, I hope my dreams come true...
My main inspiration is my grandmother, who just passed away this January. She was the type of woman who had the knack for beauty. She didn't spend tons, but it always appeared that she did. We are going to be married in my parents backyard in September when all the roses are in full bloom, which was her favourite flower. I inherited the first strand of pearls she received from my grandfather after they were married, so they will be my main jewelry. The flower girls and my bouquet will be roses and lilies (her other favourite.) The biggest way she (and, I should note, my mum) have inspired me, though, is that I want to do most of the design and sewing myself. I've taken the idea of the pearls and the two flowers and am thinking of ways to make the them modern. The cake will be all white with "pearl" details, for instance. We just picked the date last week, so I have to hurry! I have less then 6 months!
My inspiration comes from an amalgamation of several sources. The colors of lilac and blue came from a beautiful hydrangea bush that I walked by every day last summer. I wasn’t engaged but had weddings on the brain because I was a bridesmaid for my cousin, and I remember thinking that the colors were just so beautiful, the way they blended together like watercolors. When it came time to choose my wedding colors and flowers, I chose lilac and blue hydrangeas not just for their beauty but also because they were a favorite of my grandmother, who tended a bush that grew almost as high as the second floor windows of her house. My gown and the bridesmaid dresses helped round out the feel of my wedding. The gown has simple pearl embellishments along the bodice and a long train edged with pretty lace. I didn’t expect to end up with such a long train but something about it struck me, and the pearls seemed quite appropriate as they are my birthstone (for June, also the month of my wedding). I had trouble choosing a veil, as they all seemed too ‘poofy’ to me, but ended up with a beautiful mantilla veil that is the perfect complement to the long train. The BM dresses I chose are lilac tea-length dresses with a full, swingy skirt that has a floaty feel. Combining these things ~ hydrangeas, lace, pearls ~ I’ve been inspired to plan the wedding with a traditional yet dreamy romantic feel: from the impressionistic blend of lilac and blue in the hydrangeas, to the way the lace-edged veil floats over my shoulders, down to the lacy train sweeping across the floor, to the ethereal shine of the pearl accents I’ve added to match my dress. I’m really happy with the way all these elements are coming together and am hopeful that the day really glows with beauty!
My inspiration for my wedding came from The Guy who asked if I wanted to marry him. I keep in mind that it is the two of us, and all of a sudden everything seems easy and doable. All the details become unsignificant, and I am certain that our love, devotion and partnership will help see everything through. Whenever I have trouble seeing what something should be like, I think of him, and of the two of use together and I see clearly the answer. The feeling I have when he and I, the two of us are together and everything is good, safe, uncomplicated and totally real - nothing is too big to be handled, and everything will reflect the two of us; all of that he gives to me, and that is my inspiration.
there are so many photos and bits of color and pieces of fabric and magazine layouts and especially, ESPECIALLY so many gorgeous design blogs like yours and oh joy!, design*sponge, lena corwin, hula seventy, poppytalk and more that influenced my taste and inspired me more than i probably even know.
before i started dating my fiance' i had a general idea about my wedding but no specific details. it seems that from the time we first started talking about getting engaged that our wedding music was a huge topic. the whole time we've been together we've spent countless hours daydreaming about what song we would dance to and what song would play as we walk up the aisle. he is a musician and i have worked with bands for years. so obviously, the soundtrack for our wedding is a huge deal for us and music is an enormous inspiration. i believe it's even played a role in influencing our invitation design (from a certain anathallo album with gorgeous artwork) and even the wording (...joyfully request the honour of your presence) and our favors (we wanted d to do our own vinyl records but our budget dictated a move toward more affordable cd's with a soundtrack of our relationship and wedding). certainly good music and dancing are the foundation of our reception. next we wanted great food......but most of all we wanted to throw the best party we've ever been to for the people we love with the perfect music to dance the night away to (luckily we're friends with a dj/turntablist). the song i'll be walking down the aisle to on may 19th is 'overjoyed' by stevie wonder. it's one of my all time favorite songs and it captures exactly how we feel and what we want everyone there to feel..it's basically the them of our wedding.....overjoyed.
I try to take inspiration from the everyday while still recognizing the extraordinariness of the commitment we will be making on that particular day. In the beginning, we found it very challenging to navigate the sheer volume of information (and advertisements) available for the newly engaged. We wanted something unique and personal, not overly precious or cute. We had to look for inspiration everywhere, and the bridal magazines, though helpful at first, weren't nearly enough. So our colors, celadon/espresso (though admitably not the easiest to plan a wedding around), are the combination we found and fell in love with together. Our flower arrangements are not going to be the unfurled delicate mass of succulents and peonies I adore – and not just because peonies aren’t widely available in August – but because we can both agree on sprays of white dendrobium orchids, like the ones he had delivered to the office for my birthday last year. Our caterer will be the corner Italian deli we thought we knew through sandwiches, but who, it turns out, makes an unbelievable brunch at an unbeatable price. And finally, after almost 15 months of being engaged, I am finally taking inspiration from our guests. What will allow them to know us better even though they are the very people who know us the best of all? How do we want them to remember the day that will be the next step in the rest of our lives together? What will put them at ease and allow them to be themselves, the people we love? I assume that we will be too caught up in what it means to say ‘I do’ to truly notice all of the details we have worked so long and hard to assemble, but hopefully, they will enjoy the end result. This last step has really helped the most, because in the end, thinking about who our guests are reminds me that not one person there will be judging me for choosing the wrong dress, favors, or white wine. They will be celebrating us and our decision to spend the rest of our everydays together.
Your blog is a great inspiration to me....and thanx for the links...wil definitely have a look at all of them
As an interior design student, I have learned to pull inspiration from absolutely everything. Many times I will find graphics that inspire me to make a three dimensional space.
For my wedding, what inspired me most was....my relationship. My fiance and I have a bond that is full of lightness, laughter, and love. This is what we want to communicate to our guests. Since we provide each other comfort and joy, we decided to go for a vintage look that gives a sense of nostalgia. The ceremony will take place amongst oak trees since we both love exercising outdoors. The color palette of green, off-white, and gold is clean and whimsical. For our save the dates, which I designed, I used a playwright's quote about love since many of our first dates were at the theatre. We are using our fondness for music to help each portion of the event to flow and provide the perfect ambiance. My fiance and I also love food, so the hor d'oeuvres are Latin American inspired. I know my Puerto Rican family will love them. All in all, we will be sharing the things we love about each other and design we love with our guests. I have about a million and one ideas that I can't wait to execute, and my fiance has generated his own, as well. We are not looking to impress, per se, but just share a bit of ourselves to create a celebration that is distincly "us."
my inspiration comes from the good times, the hard times and the times ahead. i know marriage is only the first of many moments to come, some rosy and some not so rosy. but through it all, i try to keep the big picture in mind--the kind of life i want with my husband and who i want to be in life. from every lesson learned and from every person i meet through these collection of happy, sad moments, i find inspiration and hopefully, come out as a better person.
Nature inspires me. The colors for my wedding came from watching the sunset over the waters. The reds, the golds, that streaked across the sky and the shadows of everything else (not quite black, but a deep, warm brown). The clouds had a warm hint to it...not as bright as when the sun was up and the sky was blue, but rather ivory with orange streaks.
Nature inspires me. The colors for my wedding came from watching the sunset over the waters. The reds, the golds, that streaked across the sky and the shadows of everything else (not quite black, but a deep, warm brown). The clouds had a warm hint to it...not as bright as when the sun was up and the sky was blue, but rather ivory with orange streaks.
Hi I found your blog at Amity & Allure & I love it.
Now, I'm going to talk from my own experience, I just got married 3 weeks ago and my inspiration came from La Zona Colonial in the Dominican Republic- the first land in America Columbus put his feet on. I was inspired by the stone buildings, petite streets, the church Iglesia Las Mercedes, which was constructed by Rodrigo de Liendo which is designed in a mixture of Romanesque and Gothic style. The soberly decorated Las Mercedes was constructed between 1527 and 1555 and contains a beautiful baroque altar with silver ornaments. This church has a convent, established in 1514 where the Spanish Dramatist and Poet Tirso de Molina lived for two years. To bring some excitement to our celebration I combined the elegance of the antique architecture of the Hotel Frances with the lush and airy garden where the celebration took place and mixed it with a range pink of lilies, cherry blossoms, hydrangeas, roses, gladiolus among others and the colorful outfit of the entertainers Diablos Cajuelos (devil mask), which are worn during carnival. I wanted a wedding where confetti's and fireworks were set while we were dancing. A wedding where kids were able to dance free and happy, where our families and friends could enjoy exquisite champagne and French dishes while enjoying the freshness of the garden. I wanted our wedding to be a celebration of love and that is exactly what I was able to have. You can see photos of my wedding by going to my blog & see a small slide show I just posted yesterday.
Okay this will sound funny, but an LL Bean tote -- i was having trouble communicating with my florist and then looked down at my hand bag, an LL Bean tote - my favorite thing! I tried to explain that as a theme for the vision, very elegant and classic but in an incredibly laid back (and yes, admittedly preppy)way, the wedding is at a yacht club in Newport in October, so i am trying to marry the concepts of fall elegance and New England boating charm. From there, I realized i should stop be so scared / intimidated by my "wedding decor" and just look to all my favorite things, from style icons (jackie kennedy and grace kelly) to fun stuff like tote bags or the fabric on my toile coach to specific design things - i love grosgrain ribbon so i sent my florist samples of a great peach grosgrain and asked him to find the flowers that work best (instead of me continually sending pics of flowers and saying, what's this or this "but slightly different"). I think you need to find the things you do totally get and then ask the experts (ie your vendors) to show you how that can be perfectly matched!!! i do love flowers but couldnt find exactly the pic i wanted, so instead putting together favorite things and design elements that did remind me of me / and this vision and then letting those translate into flowers was really the best thing - much like your stunning inspiration boards!! of course more personal and intimate ideas emerge from this too, for example, i always loved the picture of my grandmother on her wedding day, while i didn't think i would find her exact dress, i brought that very picture with me dress shopping - yes i pulled out magazine ads of cute dresses, but this picture was to evoke a feeling of how i wanted to look and it helped so immensely, the dress looked nothing like hers but the mood (elegant, romantic, yet simple) was exactly the same!! i think you really just need to look at the people / things / objects that you love and that remind you of you and from there, ask the experts and find the exact flowers, cake , candles, invitations, etc etc that match that in a "wedding" way :). hope this makes sense!! thanks so much for another great contest, i find this blog to be truly and utterly inspirational! i LOVE the way you pull every detail together and capture the spirit of the day. thanks again!
Last December my fiance and I went to visit his parents in Liverpool, England. Now, these two completely lovely retirees are also total party *animals.* (No joke - they came in after we did on New Years.) So I was a bit surprised when we ended up outside a plain, white church. I was in quite a foul mood because it was dreary, raining, and I had completely ruined my cute shoes on the slick cobblestones. When the doors opened, I was gobsmacked and my mood lifted like I was a kid at the gates of Disneyland. Alma is a tapas place/bar in a jaw-dropping, beautifully restored church. The combination of dark wood, glass (stained and not), full-sized trees, a multitude of candles, wrought iron, and feathers evoked the best vibe; laid-back, warm, enveloping, and cool without being pretentious or trendy. I've based my entire wedding off of this vibe. I couldn't have been more inspired had I been Michelangelo with my first paint-set. After my thorough search of the entire two floors, my future mother-in-law turned to me with a mojito in hand and a twinkle in her eye and said "We thought you'd like it here." I guess it's true that mothers know best.
I get my inspiration from the latest fashions. I love looking at runway photos, fashion magazines and what the celebs are wearing to get guidance on how all the little eclectic pieces really bring it all together. I also try to incorporate designs that I like on dresses or hair clips somewhere in the wedding. All the beautiful things I see and admire I use to piece together my stylish, trendy yet classic, one of a kind wedding.
My inspiration comes from the Missouri Botanical Garden. My fiance and I go there all the time - we recently became members, and walking through all the different gardens in all of the different weather, condition, seasons, inspires my daily life. We're getting married in the Japanese Garden because the simple aesthetic of the garden exemplified what we wanted out of lives together - something simple, something beautiful, something enduring.
I have to begin this answer with a caveat: I'm a doctoral student in anthropology, so research & ritual are both second nature to me. When we first got engaged, I tried to drown myself in wedding books & magazines, but I felt sick within a few minutes in the bookstore -- I (at the time, at least) couldn't distinguish between the color differences of white vs. ivory, couldn't care less about where different lace patterns came from (Alcenon? Alcatraz?), and couldn't get myself very invested in what formality level different invitation wordings implied -- this wasn't what I needed! It wasn’t what I needed for several reasons: it wasn’t a co-operative body of literature (very little of it included grooms, families, friends, etc.), it wasn’t inspiration on the level at which our wedding planning was back then, and it wasn’t at all about meaning-making.
Wanting inspiration that would help us keep answering questions about what we were doing (why now? what for? etc.), my fiancé and I turned, together, to our passions outside of weddings, relationships, and each other for answers: we read together, we cook together, we design furniture that he builds for our home together, and we debate ideas together. Individually, we pursue other fields from cultural & aesthetic theory (me) to theoretical physics & technological developments (him), and we looked to those, as well.
What this means is that we’ve had the luck to find our best inspirations in our daily habits -- the foods we cook, the stories & poems we read to each other, the materials & belongings in our home, the words of friends & family, and the dialogues we have about any image or idea (whether it's one we love or hate). We’ve been able to turn our inspiration-seeking into a weekly ritual of taking a long walk one night, and each brainstorming out loud what we want from life, our marriage, and our wedding. Some amazing things have emerged (from our location, a LEED-certified art education center, to our ceremony format, which draws on the traditions of our families as well as other cultures & symbols), and we’ve been able to draw in everything around us (the beer we drank for dinner, the lunar eclipse, my dissertation research, etc.) as inspiration.
What I’ve been happiest to pull on for inspiration, though, are the aspects of my life that, pre-wedding-planning, were completely disparate: professional knowledge, love of food & cooking, and principles & ethics. It feels right that in marrying this fantastic guy, I’m also marrying all the things in which I’m invested.
I turned, instead, to my passions outside of weddings, relationships, and my fiance: fiction-reading, anthropology (my graduate studies), and aesthetics/form (art & architectural history undergrad degree!). I encouraged him to do the same and he came to: handicrafts, technology, and function/clarity. Together, we brainstormed what those things had to do with weddings (we read stories and poems about love & marriage together, I researched cross-cultural traditions, he thought of all the things we could make for a wedding, and he took off running on music & photography), and began to look for the inspirations that moved us outside of weddings. In designing a meaningful ceremony & kickass reception, we drew on our principles and ethics (a LEED-certified location, local/sustainable food & flowers), words & technology (allowing us to really make the medium the message -- everything about our wedding is going to have our hand & our message in it), and design inspiration (my love of pretty/funky, and his love of simple/logical).
We've found our best inspirations in our daily habits -- the foods we cook, the materials in our home, the words of friends & family, and the dialogs we have about any image (whether it's one we love or hate).
P.S. You totally don't have to consider me as an entrant, but I liked the question. =)
My biggest problem in planning my wedding is that I am inspired by too many things! As a graphic designer, I devour textures and colors by the dozen, stashing them in various folders and boxes and just itching for the chance to use them in a project. Well, this wedding is my ultimate project, with design in absolutely everything. The only way I could narrow things down was to focus on celebrating my fiance and my relationship and the things that we love about our city (St. Augustine, Florida). These things amounted to a motif (Birds and Magnolias), our save the dates (photobooth pictures like in Amelie), my dress (1940's inspired mermaid gown), the food (provided by our favorite cafe), and the ceremony and reception sites (a beautiful state park that we spend time in, and a historic officer's club in the armory where his grandparents worked and where his parents had their reception).
Now that I have strong jumping off points, it's a lot easier to focus on the particulars and get lost in the details of doing fun things like screenprinted invitations and making my veil. It also makes the chance discovories a lot more exciting (like finding a 1950's tulle slip to wear under my dress triple-marked down at my local vintage clothing store).
My fiancé loves classic movies while I adore books. Our favourite story is To Kill a Mockingbird. Sounds like a wild idea for a wedding, but being designers, we egged each other on for the challenge. The key for us was to focus on 3 key words that came out of the story: discovery, simplicity and childhood memories. They became the starting point for us to explore the endless possibilities... from our save-the-date bookmarks, our reception location amidst apple trees, a candy station, treasure boxes as centerpieces filled with childhood trinkets ... We loved that in the process of planning the wedding (coming in October), we were discovering our pasts and weaving them into our future.
I found my inspiration in our wedding local. Two summers ago we took our first vacation together and went to Burlington, Vermont. We have so many amazing memories from the time we spent together there that we asked our family and closest friends to join us for our destination wedding (from NY/CT). We just want the feelings we had to be translated to a weekend of love and fun.
The Church Street Marketplace in particular was a huge inspiration. The wonderful sense of community that is created by the Church Street Marketplace is something we wanted to be a part of with our family and friends. We are getting married at a beautiful Congregational Church and then walking around the corner on the Marketplace to the restaurant we are having our reception with all our guests. We are looking forward to having a big Italian dinner party at the restaurant with high ceilings and beautiful floor to ceiling window overlooking the marketplace. Good food, good wine, good conversation. I have this picture of lots of laughter and merriment all night.