How do you put all of your ideas out into one visual place where you can see it all come together?? The coveted “Inspiration Board”.

Making an inspiration board was one of my favorite activities, so far (I’m eagerly awaiting cake tastings). There are several ways to create the boards—until I figured it out, I thought that everyone around me was so creative and I had no skills in the world of design. You can use a fun site like Polyvore and create a “fashion” board and put some looks together. I loved using this site to see what dresses and tuxes would look like together.  I’ve also enjoyed using the boards at the fabulous Wedding Wire (along with the guest tracker, budgeting, other inspiration).

This is my board courtesy of Polyvore:

You can also use Big Huge Labs and use “Mosaic Maker” within that program. This is best for creating a board using the images that have inspired you (you will have to upload them to a photo hosting site first) and customize it to fit your vision. It is easy-trust me! They walk you through everything and with a little trial and error; you too, will be the envy of new brides-to-be.

A Mosiac Maker sample (showing our engagement pics, because I did not heed my own advice and credit properly on some of my boards, so they remain hidden):

Something even more simple? Your PC office apps. I know that MAC has great tools too, but I’m a PC girl. Anyway, insert your photos into a .ppt file, arrange, “save as” a .jpg and voila! one.

A budding bride can never do enough research!! In the past seven months, I’ve “right clicked and saved” more times that I could ever count or ever repeat in my lifetime. Here is a suggestion- when you right click and save, save the name of the file/photo as the name of the photographer, bride, website where you found the picture, etc. If you use or post a photo that you don’t own the rights to, it is only proper to give credit to the bride/photographer, etc.

Wedding planning is very visual for me…. And this has help me to put my thoughts into a visual palette and see if it will “work” or not and what the overall vision can be.