I wrote about the theme of the wedding here (well, I told you about my shoes and how they had influenced my choice of peacock feathers being the link holding things together) but I haven’t written much about inspiration and boards.
Soon after we were engaged I bought a couple of wedding magazines. I didn’t find them terribly inspiring word wise but I did make a board out of images which is still stuck on my notice board at home. Actual inspiration boards gave way to virtual inspiration boards which I posted on my blog, starting with a literal ‘cut and paste’ job of images I liked but becoming more interesting as I discovered software which would make collages.
{Image by Punam Beam Photography}
This was probably the first image that I liked enough to save and translated into our wedding plans as we have collected little glass vases and jars and pots to place a selection of tea lights, lavender and roses into on the tables.
If I now look through my collection of images, my inspiration board looks like this:
{Image credits: Top row – Venue (from Author’s personal collection), shoes from Rupert Sanderson website, petals from Real Flower Company, marquee by Really Good Marquees; Second Row – Photo by Robyn Kessler, crockery by The English Tea Party; Third Row – Photo by Jose Villa, venue (from Author’s personal collection), photo from US Vogue June 2008; Bottom Row: Car by Damian Hall Photography, peacock from Stylemepretty.com, flowers by Love Life Images}
Slowly I am replacing the images I have saved with ones of my own. The two photos of the venue are the lawn on which the marquee will stand (top left for the lawn and top right for the marquee) and the other image of the venue is the view from the lawn.
Looking back over my blog I see that in September last year having been planning for just under 3 months, I wrote the following which I took from a wedding inspiration questionnaire from Snippet & Ink.
1. What season is it?
It will be early summer.
2. What is the mood of the event? Is it formal, casual, or something in between? Is it grand or intimate? Sophisticated? Playful?
The idea is to have a casual formal wedding, if that makes any sense. I.e. We are aiming to keep things in perspective. It will be lounge suits/cocktail dresses rather than black tie but I hope people will wear hats. More like a country garden party/tea party I suppose, which will go on into the evening. But with a hog roast rather than sandwiches and probably less strawberries. Although that hasn’t been decided yet. Intimate, stylish, sophisticated but laid-back, I suppose.
3. What is the location? Inside or out-of-doors? How can I play up regional/local elements? Does the architecture/scenery inspire me?
We are hiring a marquee to be stood on the tennis court lawn in front of the house (which you can see part of above on the 2nd row down, left picture) with tables and a dance floor inside. We are having local produce and our friends are combining to make the music (ranging from DJ sets to a band).
A lot of the wedding will be made by my boy and I. We are proposing to hand-write our invitations on beautiful paper and to make the seating plan, posters, decorations, cake-topping thing, bunting and so on. We are proposing to make the most of it being held in a garden and beautiful outside surroundings. We shall have wellies, blankets and umbrellas on hand, just in case.
4. What single element can tie everything together? Is it a theme? A certain flower or fruit?
The single element which will tie everything together will be the peacock feather, hence also the name of this blog. The colours of the feather have and will influence everything from my shoes to my bridesmaids’ dresses. All other decorations will most likely be white to balance the vibrancy of the colours of the peacock feather. The only flowers will be the ones in the church (to be transferred to the venue) and the bouquets/button holes (vases will be on the top table to pop the bouquets in. The only other floral decorations will be dried lavender.
5. How can I stretch this idea? What is unexpected but fits perfectly with all the other aspects?
The plates and crockery we hope to use will probably be the unexpected in this theme – they will neither match each other nor the peacock feathers but I think they will be a decoration in themselves and very much fit the country/very English theme.
Thankfully, this still seems to hold true. While some of the plans have been changed (more about that later on) this early vision is much how we still see our wedding and it is coming together nicely.
There are now only 4 months left to go and the planning continues. Things are slowly being ticked off the list and I shall be able to share more of the details in the upcoming weeks. As you may have read some bloggers are going to be posting twice a week from now on, which is also true for our wedding. Only the second post won’t be coming from me, it will be from My Boy – spilling his thoughts on the wedding planning, the elements most important to him and his perspective from engagement to the wedding. He will be know as he is on my blog, as M. I hope you enjoy it.