How to Have a Personalized Wedding

Looking to have a unique and personalized wedding? Weddings today are no longer cookie cutter templates with variations on flower colors. Brides are incorporating many new ideas and trends and finding ways to personalize their wedding to make it their own. Here are some ideas and resources that can be used to explore your own creativity and that can help you build your own fabulous wedding!

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Create a theme: A great way to make a wedding your own is to find something that is special to the both of you, or that you two share in common. Weddings really stand out and become memorable to guests when they are different then the normal hum-drum wedding and have surprise elements. Ethnic background is one such way to accomplish just that. You don't necessarily have to do ethnic traditions if you don't have any, since they might end up looking forced or fake if they aren't normally done at your family weddings. But by all means, if they can be incorporated then they can add a lot of character to your wedding. Other elements of your heritage can be brought in and appeal to all of your guests senses to really bring flavor and fun to the wedding. Other ideas? Favorite hobbies you two share, or even simple color themes can be fun and creative. Is one of you a music lover? Candy addict? Pop culture junky? World traveler? When done tastefully and elegantly, any of these ideas can be used to help your guests get a feel for the bride and grooms personalities and help make the event more intimate and personal. Think about what interests you have or what makes you happy and start getting creative to find ways to bring that out into your wedding.
2. Use a beautiful floral arrangement to hold guest placecards Get ideas: So once you get a theme set for your wedding (personally, I don't like the use of the word 'theme' for a wedding since it sounds a bit tacky for what the event really is, but it does help give you a direction to base the rest of the planning around) you can start putting all the details together! Your budget, which is REALLY step one in all wedding planning, will determine where you can splurge and where you might want to find ways to get creative. Areas you can incorporate your theme are in the music, centerpiece choices, table settings, location, place cards, invitations, food, pre-wedding parties, bridal party and overall decor. I found most of my ideas for wedding elements from TheKnot.com, and wedding and party planning magazines. Search search search! Cut out pictures of anything you love or would like to have for your wedding, even if you think its out of your budget. There are plenty of creative ways to recreate ideas from magazines. I won't cover those ideas in this article but please look for other articles to come on ways to DIY! Bring these pictures to vendor appointments and talk among friends to hear what they have to say. You'd be amazed at how many ideas grow to life just chatting with friends or family.
3. Buy and Order: Once you gather all the ideas for the elements of your wedding, where do you go to put them into action? Obviously your local retailers have plenty of supplies and the companies you work with will all have preferred vendors sheets for florists and decorators they can give you. These are great places to start. But for truly unique elements, you need to look further, since all the other brides in the area are working with the same pool of resources! You need to go online - there are an infinite number of online resources just waiting at your fingertips! The internet is opening up the entire world to brides who were previously limited to their surrounding areas. You can use the Internet as either a resource for ordering elements for your wedding or you can use it for gathering ideas to create yourself.
4. Menu card Putting it into Action: So now you have your ideas and know where to go to bring them to life. Here are some ideas: You can find someone to make a custom monogram that you can load onto your computer and use to customize your wedding program or put on top of your menu cards. You can use a monogram anywhere and on lots of custom projects. There are vendors who create wedding programs online or you can create one yourself with MS Word. You can find a vendor to make personalized wedding day sweatsuits or beach bags to wear or carry on your way to your fabulous honeymoon. You can create custom labels to put on out of town bags for guests, spruce up bubbles, or decorate favor boxes. You can find plenty of inexpensive calligraphers who can customize place cards or create pretty signs directing guests to a wishing well or guest book. You can create complete custom online wedding invitations or order your own paper and print out your own wedding invitations. Find unique inexpensive candle holders, candles and picture frames. Use these to add charm and warmth to the wedding.
5. Wedding Cake in Brown and Pink Color Theme Decorate your wedding: Remember that less is more - if you have a fabulous main element that you want to showcase, keep everything else simple but elegant so as not to take away from it. Sometimes having too many wonderful things will take away from it and might look junky. Decide what is most important to you and what you want to portray on your wedding day and also think about the comfort and enjoyment of your guests and what you want them to take away from your wedding. If you use a theme, keep it consistent. If you have a color theme, select a few colors and stick with them through the entire wedding. If you are having an elegant or casual wedding, make sure the customized pieces fit in with the feel of the environment so everything looks like it fits. Being cohesive from the first time you reach out to your guests until the last dance will ensure a smooth flowing and beautiful presentation. Is this essential? Not on your life! Just make sure you are happy and enjoying your wedding day. That is THE most important piece of advice. If the bride is happy, the rest of the guests will be happy. All the planning in the world is nothing compared to the main reason of the wedding - celebrating the love of the bride and groom.

Tips & Warnings

• Beware internet scams. Anytime you are working with online vendors you should be very cautious with verifying credibility and making sure they are reliable. Going with recommendations or asking to speak to a referral is a great idea. Get a sample of their work mailed to your house or check out postings to see if other people have had a problem with them in the past.
• Working with online vendors requires a lot more emailing and phone conversations than seeing something in person. Make sure you ask for proofs and approve them before anything is finalized. Oftentimes once you receive something, its too late to change it.