Winter is the season for dreaming.  It’s cold, gloomy and I’m stuck in the house because I’m too much of a wimp to try and bare these subzero temperatures.  So my imagination naturally takes over.  I start dreaming of warmer times ahead, summer blooms and what’s next for The Day’s Design.  I start creating inspiration boards and sketching out ideas – some which will happen and some which will never be brought to life.  It’s a New Year and time to dream big.

But it’s also time to dream for my clients.  I have met some really amazing couples the past couple months and I’ve got lots of goodies up my sleeves for their big days.  I’ve been working on lots of proposals and design ideas for them as well and I get pretty impatient when it comes to waiting on making these happen, six months seems like such a long time!

As I’m making these, many people have asked what the process looks like and how I design and convey what’s in my head to these couples.  I don’t have a 100% exact step-by-step process because each couple is different, sometimes I get a little ahead of myself and eager and sometimes my brain just doesn’t stay organized and the artist in me takes over – my pencil starts drawing and there’s no stopping it…. even if I’m not to that step in my process yet.

It’s fair to say, however, that almost all of my designs start with an inspiration board of some sort which allows my clients and I to visually describe how we want the day to feel, how colors will pair together and the overall formality levels.

If you’ve followed along my Married in a Month series, this is the inspiration that brought that impromptu celebration together.  Casual, simple, natural and colorful were words that the bride (my sister) used to describe her day.  Since the wedding took place in November, we wanted to add some fall touches, however the venue was scheduled to be decorated for the holidays the week before.  So it took some careful planning to combine these elements and make sure that it didn’t feel like a “Christmas wedding” but rather a festive celebration focused on the couple, but also welcoming the holiday spirit.  Here’s what we came up with:

We try to incorporate a little bit of inspiration for each piece of the wedding day – from flowers selections to wardrobe colors and ideas and all the little details in between that will really set your day apart.  By making an inspiration board early in the planning process, you have a general direct of where your decor is headed so when it comes to choosing those very first glimpses the guest will see, such as save-the-dates or invites, they already have an idea of what the wedding day will be like and it keeps everything cohesive.  It also help to share these boards with all the vendors, especially when it comes to exact color swatches – one person’s interpretation of purple might be a far cry from another’s – there’s plum, lilac, lavender, amethyst, violet, grape… I think you get the idea.

This is just an inspiration board.  That means we’re inspired by these images, many of which were created by other amazing artists.  There might be certain elements that I pull from this board, however the goal in mind is not to copy each detail but rather the feeling and the theme that it sets forth.  I’ll be sharing the exact results from the wedding in the upcoming weeks so you can compare the inspiration and the results – they really did turn out lovely!

*Disclaimer: Unfortunately when I created this design board I had no intention of blogging about it and am not sure where I sourced all of my images from.  I deeply regret not being able to track these down and give each artist their proper due.  Please accept my apologies as I will work to correct this in the future.