Finding Wedding Inspiration in Your Favorite Photo

Using What You Love to Make Your Wedding Design Unique!

Photo Courtesy of Joseph Mark Photography

One of the earliest (and toughest!) wedding decisions that you have to make is narrowing down your wedding design.  But how do you find inspiration?  How do you choose a color palette?  How can you use what you love to make your wedding unique?  It turns out that you can find wedding inspiration anywhere, depending on what moves you and what you like.  My favorite places to look are fashion, locations or destinations, art, words, nature, food and drinks, and/or specific elements like one of a kind dishes or glasses.  Let’s chat about how you can be inspired!

Finding the right photos

Usually, I get inspired from photos, and those photos mostly come from Pinterest.  When I’m looking for inspiration for a styled shoot or a wedding, though, I try not to look at wedding photos.  I want to channel something from the 25,000-foot level and make it my own, rather than duplicating what someone else has done.  When I travel, I always take photos of cool buildings or fun details that I think could inspire me later.  So, for example, here’s a fun photo from my trip to Bhutan several years back.

What would I pull out of here?

• Color palette – This is a really interesting mix of terracotta, charcoal, ash or tan, and gold. Kind of a different mix than we normally see!
• Patterns – I like all the curly clouds here. Could we use that to develop a theme?  Sure!  Maybe by keeping our materials and our floral light, wispy, and translucent, we could create that cloud-like feel.
• Prints – We’re rocking a cool polka dot print here on the panther cat up top, but it’s neither fully animal print or juvenile feeling. Could we integrate that?

Let’s look at a couple of other photos, graciously supplied by Pinterest.

Fashion

Link to Original Photo

• Definitely the color palette is intriguing, but I would look past the obvious at the textures! Look how translucent the top layer is, and how opaque it gets at the bottom.  What a fun mix of linens we could do!
• I like how there’s no blue here – so many starry weddings rely on it, but I feel like the mixed metallics is more modern and stylish.
• Those stars are hand embroidered – do you like that detail? Could we carry it through into a larger theme?

Travel

Link to Original Photo

• I love the mix of glass and metals here – there’s not one natural thing in this tower, and that’s a pretty interesting them right there.
• The color palette is also super fun and different. We don’t usually see bright blues paired with red and orange.  What a cool twist on a fall wedding palette!

Art

Link to Original Photo

• This piece just screams dreamy to me. Even though the focus is on something completely urban, that gorgeous brushwork makes it soft and blurry, and translates into a really hazy, gentle vibe to me when I try to put it in the context of an event.
• Also, again, the colors. Grays, browns, rusts, creams – and a tiny touch of violet-blue?  In!

Words

Link to Original Photo 

• I love, love, love trying to capture the idea of one second of a couple’s love in their wedding design. What’s your ‘second’ that captures your ‘forever’?  Where were you?  What was the weather like?  What were you both wearing?  Who else was there?
• Plus, I’m a huge reader, and any time we can incorporate Lewis Carroll, it’s a good day.

Nature

• How can a clan of cacti look so soft?! I love the bright springy green with the tiny touches of blush.
• Plus, the repeating curves are kind of a fun challenge. Can you make your wedding curvy?  J
• Disney side note: BEST THEME EVER for hiding Mickeys!

Food and drinks

Link to Original Photo

• I love how classy this photo makes me feel. Like an old school dinner party, where a frosty martini goes perfectly with my pansy colored party dress and my yellow slingbacks.
• I’m also attracted to the variegation in the petal color. Could we do a yellow-violet ombre?  I bet the cake would rock!

All right!  Go forth and find your favorite photos and get to planning!

Is it all too much for you?  Take advantage of our two-hour design consultation, where we can help you figure this stuff out!  Or, even better, let us design your wedding with our Elite Design, Planning, and Coordination package – check it out here!