Inspiration Board & Thematic Elements

Welcome to my first entry in my wedding blog. Though no one may ever read it, my fiance suggested that it may be a good outlet for me since I am trolling the internet all day looking at wedding stuff anyhoo. His thought was why not join in all the fun and stop being a spectator. And unfortunately I am ashamed to admit that I have been bitten by the wedding bug. I was not one of these little girls that always dreamed about weddings, or a single girl that had a secret stash of bridal magazines and kept a book of clipped wedding pics for that "special day". Quite frankly till me and Mr.R decided to get married, I truly had resigned myself to a life of singledom and thought of weddings never crossed my mind. But now that I am actually planning one (which quite honestly is not till September 2009) I see how it is easy to become absorbed and consumed with it. It combines all the things women love: fashion, entertaining, shopping, partying, etc. How could anyone not be won over. And for me a person obsessed with planning and organization it is an unimaginable high!

So needless to say in my over achiever anal compulsive way I already have a venue, wedding coordinator, photographer, and florist. (Scary right - considering my wedding is only for 50 people including me and Mr. R and I will gladly fill you in on all the details in future entries).

Working in collaboration with the wedding coordinator she and I cam up with a theme that embodied all the things that Mr.R and I liked and truly captured the look and feel we wanted for the wedding. And that was (drum roll please): Olde City Elegance with Soft Romance. A play on the fact that we are both natives of Philadelphia and love it and wanted a soft romantic yet elegant wedding.

She had us list out things we like and words we would used to describe the look and feel of our wedding. Using this she came up with a theme and also pulled out 4-5 elements that we could use in the design of the overall look of the wedding - thematic elements.

Here is what our original brainstorm list was:

Casual-Elegance Black & White Films/Photographs Calm Rain
Intimate Jazz Music Serenity Laughter
Romantic Ballet (Giselle) Apples Animals
Fragrance/Cologne Tea Brown Sugar The South
Simple Art Clothes Baking Mirrors
Candles Warmth Books/Reading Clouds
Peonies Inviting Flowers/Garden Silver Metal
Chocolate Clay Architecture
Cookies Roses Diamonds
Leaves (Autumn) Impressionist Art Watches
Italian Spring Fun

From that we got the thematic elements of: Diamonds/Crystals, Silver, Wrought Iron (Inspired by Architecture), Romantic Flowers (Roses, Peonies, etc), Candelight.

Doing this has really helped me to focus in planning the look and feel. It also caused me to make major changes to my inspiration board. I love my board!!!!!!!! I love to just look at it and I take it with me to all my vendor meetings and when I see ideas on the net or books I refer back to it to make sure things are in line with the overall vision.