With wedding season in full swing and my wedding quickly approaching, I thought I’d share some of my original ideas and inspiration with you, as well as my initial process when we first started planning last summer. 

When that amazing surprise happens, you and your new fiance will soon start to think…where and when are we going to have this awesome celebration?! Step one of this process is to decide what time of year you’d like to get married. Once you have that figured out, you’ll quickly think of where. Where you would like your wedding ceremony and reception to be really is about what you want the event (aka party!) to be like. 

My fiance and I knew right away that we wanted a summer wedding. We also knew we wanted an indoor/outdoor event that was both formal and rustic with a laid back vibe. I love the juxtaposition of a rustic and natural setting combined with modern-traditional refinement and whimsy in the decoration. I’ve spent my summers on Skaneateles Lake in central New York since my early childhood, so it was kind of a no-brainer of where the wedding would be. After going through a handful of venue options, we found the most perfect place, a hidden gem, just outside the historic village of Skaneateles. 

The next step was to find the inspiration (my favorite part!). Now that Pinterest has kind of taken over in the wedding department, it’s pretty easy to gather ideas….in moderation! It’s also really easy to gather too many ideas. I sifted through some of my favorites and created a few inspiration boards that laid the path to the rest of the planning. 

Since I grew up on the water, I was immediately drawn to the beachy, nautical feel, and saw a trend within all my inspiration. But I was also thinking of my fiance and what he likes, so every idea was a collaboration of we liked and wanted. The style definitely has a nautical influence without being “themey”. That was the absolute last thing we wanted was anything themed. I say this because, sometimes when there is a theme, it can easily get carried away and the event becomes more about the theme and less about the couple. 

Lastly, I pulled together the fashion inspiration for myself, my groom and the wedding party. 

These inspiration boards became very helpful when discussing bridesmaid attire with my girls as well as contacting and booking the different vendors. I would email these inspiration boards to give that vendor a clear idea of the look, feel and style of the venue and what we wanted; especially when booking our caterer, photographer, and videographer who were all very important to me and they all play important roles on our day!

To conclude all of this, I will be completely honest…after 5-6 months into our 14 month engagement my ideas and styles definitely shifted a bit. My color palette is completely different in all aspects of the wedding while it still maintains the same feel and style that I originally fell in love with. My advice to all the newly engaged brides is to be flexible with any changes and bumps in the road that come along and to keep it simple. The most important part of the day is that you will be marrying your life partner, and on that day all of your family and friends will be in one place at the same time celebrating your love. They will never know what could have, would have, and should have been…I’ve been reminding myself of this advice a lot lately now that I’m nearing the end to all of the planning!

I hope you find this helpful and please share any other tips and comments below! I can’t wait to show you my process with some of the actual decoration that I’ve done…and I cannot wait to see it all come together on our wedding day in a couple of weeks. 🙂

xx Katie