HOW TO BEGIN GETTING ‘WEDDING’ INSPIRED
One of the first things you will want to begin doing as you start planning your wedding is immersing yourself into the wealth of inspiration to solidify your visual and experiential aspirations for the big day. However, the sheer abundance of ideas from around the world flooding your screens can be overwhelming.
As a luxury wedding planner, it is our job to help you feel truly understood as we help conceptualise and elevate your vision. To kickstart this process, I assist in guiding my clients to craft an initial mood board, laying the foundation for us to collaboratively map out a breathtaking guest experience and wedding design by combining their personal stories, sentimental touches, and visual style.
Instagram is not just a huge source of wedding inspiration but also a fantastic way to create a support network of other engaged couples navigating the intricate path of wedding planning. Instagram proves to be an indispensable tool for immersing yourself in the realm of the UK and international wedding industry by providing a window into the portfolios and styles of numerous talented suppliers.
For those who find themselves newly engaged and unfamiliar with our wonderful industry, I strongly recommend initially spending time on this platform learning, researching, and connecting. Doing this before hastily committing to bookings or finalizing your design, allows you to take the time to follow and engage with profiles that resonate with you. This helps you to not only refine your wedding vision but also to begin establishing affiliations with luxury wedding planners or suppliers so you can build a team of like-minded industry professionals capable of executing your day in alignment with your unique vision.
Follow us on Instagram @inawe_weddings
SOME OF OUR FAVOURITE INSTAGRAM PROFILES TO FOLLOW
The Wed
Over The Moon
Carats & Cake
Wedluxe
Vogue Weddings
SheerLuxe
Style Me Pretty
BRIDES
Bridal Musings
Pinterest stands out as an invaluable tool for sourcing inspiration to initiate your wedding design journey. Instead of hastily securing suppliers, begin by creating a dedicated board to pin ideas. This process allows you to organically unearth a colour scheme and define your overall wedding style. Subsequently, you can also categorize your inspiration into specific sections within your board such as floral design, tablescape ideas, stationery, cake, lighting and production, and more.
Establishing a clear vision through this initial pinning process becomes instrumental when you begin sourcing your team of wedding suppliers. A well-defined vision empowers industry experts to elevate your design, and use their professional knowledge to build upon it and produce something that surpasses your expectations.
Optimizing your Pinterest experience and board is made even more accessible by adding the app to your Google Chrome browser. This enables you to pin images from various sources, including Instagram saves, online wedding magazines, and wedding blogs. The platform's intuitive suggestions further streamline your exploration by recommending images related to your evolving wedding style - As you pin more Pinterest suggests more and more similar images for you too.
I have also curated boards on my Pinterest account, featuring wedding design concepts. My favourite UK wedding venues and suppliers, wedding fashion and beauty, wedding details such as stationery, draping, and lighting, innovative catering ideas, floral installations, weekend wedding inspiration, and much more.
YOUR WEDDING LOCATION OR WEDDING VENUE
The venue you choose has the biggest influence on the design of your day, final styling choices, and overall guest experience on your wedding. As you embark on the wedding venue search, it's essential to have a clear vision and a grasp of the operational needs of your wedding as set at the beginning of your planning journey. Keeping these foundational aspects in mind ensures that your chosen venue not only stands out as an independent wow but also serves as a beautiful backdrop for the personalized details and atmosphere we create for your guests.
Once you start viewing the spaces you will discover that each the venue holds its own feeling. It's important that you feel a genuine comfort in these surroundings before making a final decision. For instance, a London ballroom venue carries an inherent aristocratic more glamourous feel immersed in the energetic buzz of the city, while a secluded country estate or manor house, embraced by acres of nature, immediately radiates a more serene and relaxed atmosphere.
In addition to assisting in discovering a venue that perfectly aligns with your vision, I often work with clients who already have remarkable venues in mind. In these cases, the entire essence of the wedding can derive from the unique character of the chosen venue, allowing us to layer on personal touches later in the process. So don’t worry if your wedding venue is your first source of inspiration!
Read our blog on the top UK wedding venues to book in 2024 here
FASHION & BRANDS
When conducting an initial design interview with my clients I always like to find out what their favourite brands and fashion designers are. Brands carry a distinct identity, a unique aesthetic, and often embodies a lifestyle or ethos. By finding this out I gain valuable insights into my client's personal style, tastes, and the ambience they might envision for their wedding day.
Brands and fashion designers serve as cultural touchpoints, reflecting individual narratives and expressions and exploring your favourite brands means drawing inspiration from the wider world of design, incorporating elements that resonate with you on a personal level, meaning you’re not simply just trying to recreate a wedding from a series of photos on your Pinterest board. Whether it's the colour palette, textures, or design principles, these personal insights help to tailor every detail of the wedding to encapsulate your unique style, creating an event that feels not just beautiful but is truly representative of who you are.
BE INSPIRED BY YOU
Crafting the essence of your wedding design and wedding experience is about capturing the true personalities of both individuals involved – each with your own unique stories, from the places you grew up to the defining moments in your lives. It's a celebration of two distinct narratives blending into one union.
Consider your journey as a couple, filled with personal love stories, shared memories, and significant places and people. These elements, when integrated into your wedding design, can elevate the occasion to something deeply meaningful, individual, and with heightened emotion.
You can draw from your stories and think about how these can be incorporated into your wedding design. This is part of the personalized service I provide while crafting your design guide, I've compiled a few examples below to showcase the approach I take in curating a unique and meaningful experience for each couple.
One of my clients based their entire wedding design based on their first date which was in Sicily, Italy, it was the defining moment in their relationship when 2 people who lived on opposite sides of the world met. In another memorable instance, a couple placed food at the centre of their love story, each dish served during their wedding breakfast held significance, representing pivotal moments in their relationship – from their first date to the engagement and even a dish from their favourite holiday. Another couple drew inspiration from art crafted by the groom's beloved grandfather, incorporating its essence into the design of their wedding stationery, and finally the vibrant and colourful atmosphere of Glastonbury festival where they not only met but continue to attend annually, has inspired the entire floral design for one of my upcoming weddings this year!
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER
Are there any shared experiences or adventures that define you as a couple?
What have been your favourite holidays together?
Name 5 things you both love doing individually or together.
What are your favourite foods (include dishes you love to eat or cook together!)?
What’s your favourite music? (This could be music you love to listening together, a significant artist or song, a shared genre you love)