So I always knew that I would get my wedding dress custom made. And I don’t mean always as in since I’ve been engaged. I mean since I realized that I am one of the pickiest people on the face of the planet when it comes to dresses – so basically when I started to dress myself for special events. This little part of my personality still comes as a shock to most, as they all know me as a “Comfort Cootie.” That nickname was lovingly bestowed on me by Dahlia Dude, and has since stuck exceedingly well. And I must say that it rings true: I’m a jeans and tshirts kind of girl. Anyway, back to being picky.

When Dahlia Dude and I first started talking about getting married, I knew that I would never be happy with my dress unless I picked it to match the venue. And so, as our ideas of venues changed and evolved, so did my mental image of my dress. And you’d be surprised at how many mental images of wedding dresses I’ve had floating around in my head. I could probably open up a boutique at this point!!

When we finally decided on a beach wedding in Cape Town, I started working on narrowing down the images that I could find online into an inspiration board of dresses. And this is what I came up with:

All Dresses Taken from Designer Sites

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When picking a color palette for our wedding I was apparently very tongue tied- so says my MOH/Invitation Goddess/Graphic Designer. MOH had to fill me in on how to properly name colors and carry around a palette so that I did not wind up with the wrong colors.

But first how was I supposed to pick colors!?! As a Doctor of Audiology student I am quite good with sounds and know exactly which songs to pick and what not to… but colors I believe I must have failed that section of Kindergarten. So Cherry Dude and I sat down to discuss. We came up with a bullet pointed list (ahhh how we love lists) of important points about our wedding: we wanted it to be intimate, simple, romantic, peaceful, rustic, cozy and personal. How does one put together a color scheme to fit that…? We were at a loss. So we thought of all the reasons we decided to marry in peaceful Sedona rather than here in the Valley of the Sun (Phoenix).

Souce

Last weekend Periwinkle Dude and I attended a beautiful wedding.  After 11 months of engagement, our friends “E” and “B” tied the knot and we were so happy to be there to celebrate with them!  The ceremony and reception were held at the Sea Oaks Country Club, near the Jersey Shore.  The country club was a bright and open airy space, with windows that looked out onto the pristine golf course below.  Here is a shot of the ballroom from Sea Oak’s website:

Source: http://www.seaoakscc.com/

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Ok….so after hours of deliberation (I mean seriously, it shouldn’t be that hard) I have chosen our colors! I took into account all the great advice I got from all of you.  Unfortunately, Dogwood Dude’s only advice was “Whatever makes you happy, makes me happy”… I resisted the urge to tell him that he wasn’t making me happy at that moment!  I decided to do some research into local flowers to see what we could get for a good price and what colors I had to choose from for those flowers.

So, here were the three choices I was looking at….and click through to see what we picked!

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I’ve always wondered what it would be like to get married during the holiday season.  There is something so magical about the time of year, and I think it would be a lot of fun to host a winter wedding in NYC.  Want to see the details that inspire my imaginary winter wedding?

This gown would be BEAUTIFUL for the bridesmaids…

Source: Nordstrom

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I’ve done a lot of posting about my October 31st “western” wedding, but not a lot about my November 7th Sikh wedding. I guess this is mainly due to the fact that many of the details for our Sikh wedding are being taken care of by Orchid Dude’s family – all I basically have to do is show up on the day of.

Our Sikh wedding and reception will be much less detailed than our western wedding. It is based more around celebrating the traditions of the religion where as our first wedding is based on a reflection of Orchid Dude and I as a couple – our tastes, our likes, our vision.

The colours for our ceremony are very traditional: I will be wearing a red and gold Lahenga and Chunni and Orchid Dude will be wearing a matching Sherwani and red turban. For our reception, I will be wearing a hot pink Sari and Orchid Dude will be changing into a suit.

Orchid Dude’s dad went to India to buy all of our clothing and jewelry so it was a complete surprise to me what everything would look like, but his choices were gorgeous. The rich colours and the beautiful detailing of the garments and jewelry is what inspired me for my latest board.

Photo credits: Project Wedding, Melissa McKinnon Photography & Kelly Vasami Photography

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:

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Although I have chosen red and black as my wedding colours, I have always loved the elegance, richness and beauty of the colour purple. It has become one of the trendy wedding colours this year and I love it because it can be so versatile – from a soft lilac to a deep eggplant, there is a shade of purple to fit your every mood.

Inspired by the lavender being used for my upcoming shower, I had the urge to gratuitously search purple wedding photos and create this board – enjoy!

Photo Credits: Project Wedding & The Knot

I know our colors are navy and white.  But after I finished creating Rebecca and Akshay’s monograms, I had to create an inspiration board based on their colors.  I can’t help it, I think the colors are so romantic!  This is what I fear… we still have a year away and I keep finding myself craving other color motifs.  Have you changed your wedding colors more than once during planning?

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I’ve been seeing inspiration boards everywhere and think they are such a beautiful way to portray a theme or mood for an event. So, I thought I would try and make my first inspiration board based on my October 31st wedding.

Instead of going with obvious Halloween decor, we are using the colours red and black along with patterns such as damask and decor elements like candelabras and loads of candles to achieve a feeling of Halloween darkness but with an elegant, vintage twist.

Photo Credits: Taite Boudoir, Project Wedding, Martha Stewart, Style Me Pretty & Megan Harde Photography