Wedding Planning Advice: Finding Your Wedding Style

In the age of Pinterest and Instagram, brides and grooms have more options than ever when it comes to wedding day ideas. Visually accosted on the regular with amazing wedding style ideas, new colour palettes and trends. It can be very easy to lose yourself in all the options. We've lost count of the number of brides who come to us and say 'Please help, my Pinterest board is a mess of 1000 different style ideas, I'm going mad from all the choice.'

So how can you wade through all the tulle and the saved pins and find your true wedding day style? How do you find that all important design that makes your wedding day yours?

Where you at?

Xander and Thea Revelry Events Neon Classical

Have you booked your dream venue already? If not, what kind of places call out to you? Where have you pictured getting married for, like, ever? Barn, ballroom, greenhouse or garden - it doesn't always have to define the design of your day but it can help with setting the tone. Play with a design that either contrasts or complements your venue, but that doesn't clash. 

If you're opting for a country manor and a marquee, you could make it a winner with an English country garden design of teacups and pastel florals to complement, or go for an all out contrast with a Moroccan inspired tent with rich colours and fabrics. Perhaps your formal London venue has an neon, geometrical twist to contrast, or a vintage glam design to complement.

We contrasted an opulent London listed building with bright neons and wild arrangements at a recent shoot, to inspire couples that they don't have to be dictated by the venue when it comes to design. --->

speakeasy wedding

Casual or Formal?

Your design choices can be narrowed down when you think about whether you imagined your wedding day formal or casual. What kind of atmosphere speaks best to you both as a couple? Are you the kind of couple who likes to host dinner parties and get dressed up for an all night party, or are you the kind of couple who prefer a beach BBQ and chilling out with friends?

Whichever option you go for, that level of formality will carry through all the aspects of your wedding, from the invitation to the place settings.

Think Seasonal

The time of year you're getting married in can have a big impact on your wedding design, with flowers in particular. Before you get too wedded to a specific bloom and style, think about what will be available in your wedding month. Winter weddings and deep plum peonies might look like a match in heaven but peonies are notoriously hard (and expensive) to find outside of Spring. Consider also choosing hardier flowers for an outdoor summer wedding, like daisies and roses, instead of flowers like tulips and hydrangea which will wilt at the first sign of heat.

Look outside the wedding world

The most original, awesome wedding designs come about when couples look outside of the wedding world for inspiration and focus on their shared passions, interests and favourites. Take inspiration from your favourite film, or the city you fell in love in, your first holiday, a shared hobby or a combination of two of your hobbies. 

Colour and Motif

Colours are the bedrock of wedding design. It's the easiest way to thread all the elements of your wedding together. At its most basic, you could choose a main colour, an accent colour and a few complementary shades. Have a few or many but never stick to just one colour! Add neutral or metallic accents to make your palette look dynamic and thoughtful. Seasonal colour families can look really stunning too and mean you don't have to go to matchy-matchy - a Spring wedding could look gorgeous with colours side-by-side on the colour wheel like navy, violet and green. Or an Autumn celebration of burgundy and deep red. 

A motif is another design element that can pull your whole look together. Whether its a monogram, a pattern or a shape that means something to you, it can show up anywhere from the cake to the dancefloor to the invitations and the menus. But don't go mad with this kind of design choice, it's easy to slap it everywhere and it loses it's impact. Choose 3-4 key places to show it off.

Xander and Thea

Don't copy, be inspired

More often than not, couples use Pinterest as their blueprint for their wedding suppliers. If you find the perfect bouquet or table set up, you can hand it to your supplier and say 'copy this'. It's fantastic if you have found the exact thing you wanted in a picture you can use as your guideline, but consider using it as that - a guideline. Take inspiration from other people's weddings but put your own twist on it and make it yours. Let your suppliers - whose expertise you have paid a fair amount of English pounds for - dazzle you with their experience and talent by taking your Pinterest images and adding a few special touches to make it an original and not a copy. 

Don't limit yourself

Even when all these questions have been answered and you've now got a better idea of what you want, don't feel like you have to pick one style. Your wedding can be a mish-mash fusion of a few of your favourite things. Because why not? If you like 'glam' you don't have to just stop there - is it old Hollywood glam or modern luxury glam? 

Love vintage but also want to incorporate tech? Do it! Want a techno band but kind of really like the idea of a Speakeasy after party? Go for it. Your wedding day isn't a prescribed format or design, and your venue doesn't have to define the style of the day. To truly be your wedding, it must be reflective of you - the things you like as a couple and who you are as a team. The key to going down this route is to find a thread that pulls it all together and helps your event look and feel seamless, but still individual.