Following in the steps of Oprah and the Sound of Music, here are a few of my favorite things…
Lighting
I know that flowers are traditionally the big statement-maker at a wedding, but I absolutely love the mood lighting can set. I’m not a huge flower fan anyway, so I decided to use lights everywhere at my wedding. I had stringed white bulbs around the dance floor, Moroccan type mini lanterns hanging from the reception porch, hundreds of candles filling the little white chapel, candles on the tables inside more Moroccan lanterns, and my absolute favorite…Chinese round paper lanterns adorning the skies above the dinner tables. (This was the one MUST HAVE of my wedding….other than the groom of course.) All the lights created a fun, yet super romantic atmosphere.
Again, you don’t have to spend tons to have fabulous décor. I ordered the Moroccan lanterns for the tables from eBay, found the Chinese paper lanterns wholesale on a website, and bought most of the other lighting from Target on sale. Just keep your eyes open and do some smart searching!
Color!
Color palettes are hugely important for wedding planners. It’s kind of a big deal as it pulls everything together for a unified look. But, oh my goodness, there are a lot of choices. Sometimes I tell people I could have had five different weddings with five different themes and I would have been happy with them all. I love the look of the neutral whites with a pop of color here and there. I love the strictly two-toned weddings. But I loved my colors too! Basically I went with jewel-tones…deep rich shades of pink, maroon, red, purple, orange. Some people thought I was crazy and couldn’t quite picture such a bright wedding, but it turned out beautifully. And let me tell you, it makes finding décor easier as you aren’t as stressed with matching exact shades. Just a thought.
Surprises
I like surprises when I don’t know they’re coming. If I am waiting for a surprise, I hate the anticipation. But during my wedding planning, I came across numerous weddings that held a big surprise for its guests. Of course there is the recent craze for the newlyweds to break out into a Michael Jackson-esque dance during their first dance. That’s always fun. Then I saw weddings where ice cream trucks drove in to deliver sweet childhood desserts. Again, I am all about being unique and I really wanted people to remember our wedding and thoroughly enjoy it. I wanted something to set it apart. Plus, our wedding was outdoors in August, in Texas! Sooooooo, I decided to have sno-cones! I love them, it would cool off the guests, it matched our colors and the mood of the wedding, and it was relatively cheap. Again, people thought I was crazy and I got all kinds of comments like, “Well, the kids will like it”. Let me tell you, people of all ages were eating those bad boys up! They were a huge hit and I haven’t heard one negative comment since then!
I encourage you, if you’re up for it, find something that makes your wedding stand out but that also fits you!
Food
Yup, I love food and I am not ashamed. So in the search for the perfect wedding food, I had the hardest time finding what I like to call “normal” food…something people could actually recognize and would enjoy eating. I didn’t need anything super fancy. Plus, it seemed that fancy+unrecognizable=pricey. I wasn’t ok with that. So one day, I was talking to a friend and fellow chips and salsa lover and realized that really, all my little heart desired was delectable Mexican food with unlimited chips and salsa. And that’s what I did. Traditional? No. A hit with everyone? Yes.
So here’s the deal…what are your favorite things? And how can you incorporate those into your wedding? I promise, if you really sit down and think about YOUR favorite things…not the wedding world’s, not the celebrities, not your parents or your friends…you will have an amazing and memorable wedding!
