Wedding Design: Theme, Inspiration, & Tips

Wow, I can't believe that our wedding has come and gone. It's crazy that you spend months planning this special day and in a flash it's all over. It was so nice having friends and family from near and far and spending time with the ones we love. My vision for everything about this day came to life and was better than I ever could have imagined.

(All photography credit: Abbie Tyler Photography)

A lot goes into planning a wedding. And it can definitely be stressful, however it's all what you make of it! It can be hard making decisions (coming from the most indecisive person ever!), but it usually all comes together in the end.

I'm here to share a little bit about our theme, our inspiration, and some tips I have to make planning your day a little easier. And so your vision of what you want comes to life!

Our Theme

When we first got engaged, I was really overwhelmed in trying to decide what exactly I wanted for our wedding. It was helpful that my sister Nicole is a wedding planner. (She's the founder of Exhale Events.) I'll be doing a post on all of our vendors in detail, but having a wedding planner was SUPER helpful in making our dream wedding a reality. 

After some discussing (and going through some of the tips I'll share later in this post), we decided on a "woodsy" theme. Not rustic, but woodsy. I basically wanted it to feel like a romantic forest. There were earth tones, taupe dresses for the ladies, lots of greenery, wood accents, and candles for a soft touch. I also wanted a simplistic, clean, traditional vibe, which I think we were able to achieve all of these things! 

Inspiration: Where to find it?

There was a lot of meaning behind a lot of things we did for our wedding which lead me to choose different things the way I did. Sometimes ideas would also randomly pop into my head, but I just needed to figure out how to execute them. Those are the times I needed a bit of inspiration.

So, where are the places I found inspiration from?

Between Exhale Events, Burgh Brides, and Pinterest I was able to take different aspects from each and incorporate them into my day. 

Things We Did That Helped & Why

1. Pick a date

This is the first thing we obviously did. I had always wanted a fall wedding, but more importantly we wanted all of Roberto's family to be able to come and be able to visit for a longer period of time. So we threw the idea around about an August wedding. (I actually remember doing this in our hotel room the night we got engaged. Feels like it was yesterday!)

Picking a season or even just picking a month helps start the decision making process. It gets your mind thinking of color palettes, ceremony and venue options, indoor vs. outdoor wedding, flowers that are in season, etc. After we said we're going to have an August wedding, I immediately saw lots of greenery in my vision with white flowers. (Good first step!) 

Also, random/cheesy fact -- there's another reason Roberto and I chose our wedding date. Growing up, his soccer number was always number 4 and my softball number was always number 1 -- together we love the number 14. Since that wasn't an option for our August wedding, we chose the date 8.4.18 because there was a 4, a 1, and the 8's reminded us of infinity symbols. SOO cheesy I know, but like I said there was a lot of meaning behind many things we did for our wedding.

2. Set a Budget

This step is so important. It can be difficult at times to stick to a budget, but you'll be so much less stressed if you set this from the get-go. Maybe you value having good food over the flowers or maybe you'd rather have a less expensive venue so that you're able to invite more people. These are all important questions to ask and are ones we asked ourselves. This is even a great time to break out those creative skills, if need be! That's exactly what we did to save money. My mom actually built our DIY floral wreath which was the perfect accent to our dance floor and kept us under budget.

By setting a budget and being able to allocate accordingly, you'll be able to start looking into what vendors you want to use and which ones may or may not fit your budget. For us, this changed slightly throughout, but overall I think we were able to stay within the amount we've hoped for.

3. Ask yourselves, what's your style?

Elegant, laid-back, rustic, whimsical, traditional, etc. there are so many options. But it's important that you chose what is best for YOU. 

For us, we are very simplistic, laid-back people. I'm very much a less is more person with my style, which was also my approach for the wedding. I love soft colors, and neutrals are a timeless staple in my closet, which is why the girls wore taupe and the guys sported classic black tuxedos. I couldn't see myself ever having bold colors for my wedding, which is why we chose what we did. 

This isn't to say you can't step outside your usual style and comfort zone for you big day -- because you definitely can! But from talking to different brides (whether from doing their hair and make-up or assisting weddings), often times they get anxious that they won't look like themselves or that their wedding won't reflect who they are.

If you're not into a super fancy, elegant venue, that's okay! Choose a venue that you feel like reflects your style and what you're going for. Otherwise you may just be even more stressed out. And if you love bold colors, then incorporate them however you feel!

The thing is, there are no rules. But nailing down your style and how you invision your wedding to be will be a huge help in deciding many other factors (venue, colors, attire, decor, etc.).

4. Share the Unique Things in Your Relationship

As I've stated a couple times throughout this post and much like we chose our wedding date for a unique reason, we chose and made different decisions based on things that were unique and special to our relationship. 

Not only did we chose the date because of our lucky numbers, but also August 4th this year celebrated exactly 10 years since Roberto moved to America from South Africa. (This was coincidental to some extent, but made the day extra special!)

And how about a year ago, I did hair and make-up for a styled shoot. At this shoot, there was a unique flower in the bouquet called a King Protea. I was so drawn to this flower for some reason. So much so that when I went home I told Roberto I wanted to have this flower for our wedding. He asked what it was and little did I know his response would be that the King Protea is South Africa's national flower. Umm, can you say meant to be?! 

It's the little things like this that add special touches and make your wedding unique to you. Other things we did that made our day special were, getting married in the same church my parents did by the same priest, we had a map as our guest book (since we love traveling), and our table names were all destinations that we've traveled to since we've been together. 

I felt like everywhere I looked that day there was a personal touch that meant something to us and our relationship and that made me even happier.

I get it, planning can definitely be stressful. But hopefully you were able to take a little something away from this post. And as stressful as it may be sometimes, all you brides-to-be, enjoy every second. Because before you know it, you'll be scrolling through your wedding pictures ten times a day, wanting to go back in time to do it all over again.