Aimee’s Advice & Inspiration
Although I work as a wedding and lifestyle photographer, I also have a degree in fashion and textile design. So I love working with colour, fabrics, textures, details and composition. Because of this, I always LOVE (and get rather excited) about photographing the styling and decorations that you have chosen or created throughout your wedding day; from your invitations, the layout of your reception room, and the detailing within your floral arrangements.
If it is important for you to have a specific look, feel or theme for your wedding day, then keep on reading!
Where to start?
Designing a wedding can be daunting, there can be so much to consider and so much variety. Every single detail of your wedding will contribute to the overall look and feel of your day, therefore if you want a specific look for your wedding then everything will need to work together. Details such as the texture of your flowers, the colour of your plates, and the style of your seating are all important pieces of a puzzle which will create the beautiful overall picture of your wedding day.
With this is mind it can be hard to know where to start. So, I will share my SIX TOP TIPS FOR WEDDING STYLING SUCCESS along with some of my favourite wedding styling and decor photographs from my previous weddings to hopefully get your creative juices flowing. I hope by the end of this blog you will feel excited about starting your wedding styling journey and inspired with ideas to make your wedding personal to you.
Here’s what styling can do for your wedding:
1. Help make your wedding photos look FABULOUS!
2. Create a stunning first impression.
3. Make your wedding look more expensive than it really is.
4. Create consistency and a strong theme throughout the day.
5. Create a memorable displays that you and your guests will talk about for years to come.
1. I love ALL the colours of the rainbow!!!
Your colour palette is the first decision that you need to make when styling your wedding day. It is one of the most defining design elements and will be a running theme throughout the whole day. So firstly, start by thinking about what colours you and your partner love. What colours do you enjoy wearing and use within your home decor. Look through your Pinterest and the images you’ve saved, (if you don’t have Pinterest, you’ve gotta get it, life will never be the same again!) Are you more drawn towards lighter soft colours, bold and vibrant colours, or dark and moody colours? Do you prefer warm colours, or cool?
There is almost an unlimited amount of colours that you can choose from so it can be easier to first choose just one colour that you love, and then look at pairing it with other colours that compliment them. I would advise to choose between 2-4 complimenting colours to go with your main colour. Too many will just make your later decisions harder and will be confusing when it comes to your over all theme. To help with this, have a look at colour palettes online like the ones seen below.
A contrast of tones within your colour palette can also help by having one darker toned colour in your palette in order to bring the lighter elements to life. The season of your wedding may also influence your colour choices.
Then finally, when you have decided on your colour palette, its important to allow those colours to influence your decision making with your other design elements. Before purchasing something for your wedding, I’d advise you make sure it reflects the colours and overall style that you have chosen first.
2. Venue
Your venue/s will play a large role in the styling of your wedding, it will determine the look, feel, tone and theme of your day. Since your venue is one of the first decisions you’ll need to make when planning your wedding, make sure you choose somewhere that suits your style and let it inspire you when designing your decorations.
As well as the colours of your flowers, stationery and bridal party attire, elements within your wedding venue will also contribute to the colours of your wedding. For example, if you are having an outdoor wedding, there will be the green of the trees, or blue of the ocean. For indoor weddings you may want to consider the colour of the walls and materials used within your venue. Ideally try and keep to one tone of wood, metal, stone, or slate and incorporate that colour into your colour palette.
3. Marvellous Moodboards
To help with consistency, you can create a moodboard. (Oh I do love a good moodboard!) This is a tool to enable you to visualise the big picture of your wedding styling. It brings together all of your different design ideas and helps you to see whether they work coherently and compliment each other. These can either be created physically or digitally, both work really well! A digital board can be changed and adapted really easily, whilst a physical board can have clippings of fabrics and textures that you want to use along with printed imagery.
You may want one big over all moodboard for your whole wedding with all of your inspiration, then individual ones for each part of your day – your ceremony, reception and evening, you could also create one for your florals and stationary too.
When creating your moodboard, have your wedding venue and colour palette as the backbone of your ideas by having a photo of them on each board, then add your other elements such as your furniture, fabrics, and decorative items.
4. Consistency is the key
If you are creating a theme for your wedding, try and make sure that it flows throughout every detail. With so many beautiful options for decor, florals, furniture, lighting it can be very easy to see something that you feel you MUST HAVE but could be contradictory to your theme. You want to aim for consistency to enable your theme to be clear and evident throughout every detail of your wedding. Ask yourself – “Does this reflect my theme as well as my colour scheme? … (that rhymes!)
That being said, your wedding day is about YOU, your love and your relationship story. So, if there is something that it really important to you or that you have utterly fallen head over heels with but down quite fit your theme, then who cares, go for it!
You may even want to consider having all of your typography for your wedding in the same font, a little bit like having your own brand. You could choose a collection of fonts that are used in your save the dates and invites, as well as your order of service, welcome sign, menu, place names, cocktail list… Everything!
5. Repetition, Repetition, Repetition
Repetition is a super easy and a really clever trick that can create that wow factor! This can be acheived in different ways. It could be a recurring shape in a design, or a feature such as a particular leaf which is then incorporated into your stationary, your button holes, your cake, centre pieces etc.
Or, it could be an item that is used over and over again. One item by itself might look nice, but lots of them together can look amazing. It can turn an average piece into a really simple but effective feature. For example, a large candle by itself it will look nice but imagine an entrance to your reception that is lined with candles all in a row on each side of the walkway– it will look beautiful, build anticipation and have a great first impression to your reception. This leads me into my next tip…
6. Let there be Light!
Lighting is an important factor because it affects the overall ‘mood’ of your venue and can be used to highlight special areas or props. It is also a very simple way of adding interest, decoration along with enhancing your wedding photographs.
Lighting can help create beautiful bokeh within photography. This is the quality or characteristic of the out-of-focus part of the image, a dreamy, blurred background which brings attention to the in focus feature (as seen below)
Now, when a wedding has lighting elements dotted around their venue, such as fairy lights hanging between trees, candelabras on the tables or a feature of multiple light bulbs hanging from a tall ceiling, they can create a lovely romantic atmosphere as well as real artistry to your wedding photographs. Basically, lighting looks awesome in photos and can make a great focal point for your wedding styling!
Voila!
You are now a wedding styling pro with my SIX TOP TIPS FOR STYLING SUCCESS!
1. Colour
2. Venue
3. Moodboards
4.Consistency
5.Repetition
6. Lighting
I hope you enjoyed reading through my blog. Although designing your own wedding is alot of work it is also a fun, creative and exciting process, especially when you see everything come together. Of course this can be something that you do yourself, or together with a wedding stylist professional.
Oh go on then . . . Inspire me!!
Luxury Tea Party Themed Wedding at Hethfelton House – Wareham, Dorset
Contemporary Industrial Warehouse Themed Wedding at Lawrence Hall – London
Royalty Themed Wedding at The Duchess of Cornwall Inn, Dorchester
Gold Luxe Themed Wedding at Harbour Heights Hotel – Sandbanks, Dorset
Country Themed Marquee Wedding at Studland Bay House, Dorset
Along with capturing your love and your guests enjoying the day that you have planned, I believe photographing the styling of your wedding day is also so important. I know that each design decision can have hours of preparation and thought behind it, so it’s wonderful being able to capture the wedding that you have created for you to enjoy, keep and remember forever.
Aimee x
All photography is by Aimee Joy Photography. www.aimeejoy.com info@aimeejoy.com
