Details: dress // earrings // similar pearl headband // heels // pearl clutch // faux fur + pearl bag // pink ‘Bride’ beaded pouch c/o // similar ‘f*cking finally’ mug {this was a gift!} // The Wedding Book // Vogue Weddings Book // faux orchid in gold pot // pearl tissue box cover: old Urban Outfitters {sold out!} // the ring dishes were all gifts!

How I Gathered Our Inspiration

It’s only right that I share our second wedding update the day after our seven year (dating) anniversary, which was Valentine’s Day… and Johnny’s 27th birthday!! 😂

We celebrated last night with dinner, after Johnny worked from home for the day and I did some more wedding dress shopping with my mom. Which brings me to this post… because I’ve been pulling out our wedding inspiration for every wedding dress appointment we’ve had so far!

I kicked off my wedding series last month when I shared our venue and most of our major vendors, and since those are solidified we’ve moved on to some of the creative design elements! I’ll confess in that I’ve been collecting wedding inspo for years (I realize this shocks no one), and before we even got engaged I had a number of ‘secret’ Pinterest boards for the various elements of a wedding– from the bridesmaids dresses to reception decor. I’ve also sporadically saved wedding inspiration I’ve seen on Instagram into a folder there too.

You may think I was premature by saving so much inspo before we got engaged (and you’d totally have a case for that 😂), but looking back I’m really thankful that I did save so much, because as soon as we got engaged I didn’t have to really go out and find a bunch of inspiration, but could just pull from what I’d saved in the past. That actually ended up saving me a ton of time in the planning process.

I would say that so far my number one piece of advice to anyone who isn’t married yet but wants to be, is to start saving photos and videos of wedding elements you love NOW, so that you’ll have them to refer back to when you start the planning process, and don’t have to go searching for flower arrangements or wedding dresses that you’ve seen and loved. It also never hurts to start manifesting the process too 😉.

How I’ve Organized Our Inspiration

So I went into the wedding planning process with hundreds of saved Pinterest and Instagram photos featuring other weddings I loved (or aspects of them!) and then decided to pull my top few photos from all of those and put them into a deck (I used Google slides) that had a different slide for each aspect of the wedding– from tent inspiration to my wedding dress inspiration. I got the idea to put it all into a deck from my friend Sarah Mae (the founder of @maedinnyc), who recently got married and sent me the template of her deck to use!

Having this has allowed me to narrow in on my vision and add in notes or captions to images, for all of the ideas and thoughts my mom and I have. This deck has become the most useful tool to share with wedding vendors, as it allows them to see the full scope of how we’re envisioning almost every aspect of the wedding day. It’s basically a hybrid mood board/inspo board/planning deck x 1000 and doused with champagne.

I also narrowed that deck down into a separate one-pager visual mood board to include in this post and share with all of you, but then realized it actually gave away way too much!! I think I really underestimated how strongly our deck/mood board represents the vibe and decor of the day! 😂

How We’re Describing Our Wedding

So since I chickened out on sharing the inspiration mood board, describing it is second best. My mom and I keep saying phrases like ‘traditional with a twist’ and ‘eclectic classic’ to describe the style we’re going for with the entire wedding design. I also think the wedding will be a very close reflection of my personal style– feminine and classic but with little twists and modern updates.

When I look over our mood board of inspiration, the first words that come to mind are personal, classic, ethereal, cozy, and fun! As I type those out, I’m realizing some of those also describe exactly how we want our guests to feel… so welcomed and loved.

Then there’s the more obvious aspects of the wedding design in our mood board, like the color palette and floral inspiration, which evoke a garden-party-meets-island-soirée type of look and feel, that I would say is very accurate of how my mom and I love to entertain and decorate! There’s also (of course) some pink in there…

Ultimately, our design ideas and plans will be all about celebrating and personalizing what will be the most important day in our relationship, and the details are just added fluff on top of that! Now that we have our vision solidified, I need to keep finding the right creative partners and vendors to help bring it to life!!

A Few Inspo Resources…

• How I’ve found inspiration– By following wedding accounts on Pinterest/Instagram, getting into Instagram holes on my discover page, and flipping through wedding magazines/books!
• How I’ve saved inspiration– Through ‘secret’ Pinterest boards, a saved folder on Instagram, and finally, a Google Slides deck! We also made a one-pager mood board on Canva.
• Most helpful books– The Wedding Book for the most useful for every single wedding logistic or question you could ever think of, and Vogue Weddings for the best inspiration I’ve come across… anywhere!!
• Favorite wedding inspo Instagram accounts– @overthemoon, @eastonevents, @augustacole, @caratsandcake, @laurynprattes, @brides, @mariee_ami

What do you want to know in my next wedding update post?!