How to Curate Your Wedding Style
Curating your wedding style may seem daunting at first but we’re here to tell you it’s actually SO much fun! We always suggest hiring an experienced coordinator or wedding planner to help you in this process. If you’re going to do it alone though, we are here to help!
What is Curating Your Wedding Style and Why is it Important?
Pinterest is definitely going to be one of your big friends here, but there are so many other online options to use too. Curating your style is a creative process that determines what your wedding theme or colour tones will be and provides inspiration to you and your vendors as you plan your day and begin to source your details and decor options. Curating your style is important as your wedding should be a reflection of both yourself and your fiancé, while allowing you room to be creative and plan something of your dreams. Having a curated style means you will have a cohesive look and feel to your wedding day and it will be easier to plan. Check out this beautiful luxury Calgary wedding that showcases a curated style.
Where to Start
The best place is to start is on a piece of paper where you can sit down together and just free-write colours, themes, ideas down. Anything and everything goes. Remember a wedding is with two people so don’t make any judgements about each other’s ideas or thoughts. Compromise and choices can come later on.
Start to find the items that you both agree upon or really like and use a colour or number system to identify them and slowly narrow it down. Keep your wedding season and venue top of mind when you are brainstorming. You want to complement the season as well as your venue and style. Sit on a particular colour palette (or combination of colour palettes) and creative ideas over time. This might mean overnight or for a couple of weeks while you ponder and brainstorm. Something you think is a great idea today, may not be so loved tomorrow. Once you sit down to discuss again and have come to a decision, the next stage can begin!
The Second Stage
This is where clients like to have fun – the Pinterest stage! Create a board and start to search for and pin ideas that correlate to your theme. The key things to keep in mind though: your wedding is not someone else’s wedding – your ideas will look unique to you. The second important thing I tell clients to remember is that curating your style is exactly that – curating. Resist the temptation to “over-pin” pictures just because they are pretty. Keep realistic and maintain your budget in your mind. Give your board or theme a name. This will also aide your vendors in understanding your style.
Bring the Details Together
As your ideas start to come together, the next thing I encourage couples to do is to pick up a Pantone book or paint store for some paint chips or swatches. Take these home with you so that when you are pinning ideas or out shopping you have your colours right in front of you to help you in your styling. Things like stationary, ribbon and florals are much easier to plan when you have colour swatches. Fabric swatches can also be helpful as you can compare them to your paint chips in terms of tonality and texture. Sometimes you may have an idea of what would work, but once you see it physically your thoughts might change!
Create a binder or a folder where you can house these objects and take them with you to vendor meetings. These items would even be helpful for your cake baker, your florist and even while dress shopping. This way you have an easy to reference collection of items that make what you’re trying to describe to your vendors much easier. These items can also be kept as heirlooms or keepsakes of your planning in a shadowbox or other storage to show your family years down the road!
Wherever your ideas take you, remember to keep your love story, personalities and special experiences together top of mind. This will ensure your wedding is a true reflection of you.
Happy Planning!
xo, Nicole Sarah
