from inspiration to reality

i am so honored to be doing a post for erin over at sparkle & hay while she’s on hiatus for her wedding, and i decided to put it up on mine today as well :).  it’s been so much fun getting to know her throughout this whole process and it’s so funny to say it but i feel we’ve become friends throughout it all!  and the best part is, we got to know each other through a blog competition through weddingchannel.com, and i am so glad it brought us together (although i’m sure we would have found each other sooner than later anyways, as we are both from the same area of connecticut and even used some of the same wedding vendors!)  congrats to you erin and i can’t wait to see all the little details come together, as we all know they will.  it’s going to be gorgeous and YOU, little lady, will be the most beautiful bride :)

so now down to my guest post!  so exciting :)

when erin first asked me i thought - wow - a post for sparkle & hay?  talk about pressure!  but i am happy to oblige! 

when i was planning my own wedding which took place almost a month ago, wow, i had SO many ideas in my head.  and with so much inspiration floating around from all the other bloggers out there and on the web and in the magazines and, and, and… it just got so overwhelming!  i had to put a stop to the madness and sit down to collect my thoughts in to one place, which is how i ended up creating an inspiration board.  for those who haven’t yet done this, the inspiration board is just that - a place to take all of those pictures you’ve been saving, all of those ideas you’ve had, and tie them together in one place.  it helps you to determine your color scheme, your “little details” and really just helps you pull all of your ideas in to one place and really focus on a vision for your big day.  i created mine at dessy.com but you can also make them on circle.stylemepretty.com and even powerpoint is a great and easy method.

for my wedding, i came up with two - one for the overall theme and one for the flowers, because i was totally and completely obsessed with the flowers.  just ask my florist :)

new england shoreline wedding

flowers

as you can see, the blue canning jars and ranunculus played a huge part in both - i knew i wanted them involved somehow to keep my wedding rustic and beach chic, but elegant.

now the next thing i did was send the boards to my vendors (as appropriate).  this really helped give everyone (my photographer, venue manager and florist) an idea of my theme for the day, and made sure we were all on the same page.

fast forward to the wedding day, and taking those pieces and turning them in to reality.

and the flowers?  spot on!  source

as for the shoes?  well, i promised my husband i’d wear them every day for the rest of my life in order to convince him that they were worth the purchase (that, or i promised i’d sell them on eBay after, hehe) :) source

for the overall color scheme we stuck with slate blue, khaki and pink - which to me gave a quintessential new england beachy feel :)  source

while we didn’t end up doing the lanterns, we found the tissue paper puff balls to be just as pretty, in a light, fluffy way.  we hung them from the ceiling using light blue and white baker’s twine.  (see more mason jars on the mantle!)

on top of all that, we used beach stones as our placecards, and had a gorgeous burlap runner on our guest table to showcase the pretty placecards, along with a nickel & nickel wine box for our cards and a great little vintage guestbook.

after all my rambling it really comes down to this - if you have a vision, no matter the budget, you can make it happen.  all it takes is a few pretty ideas and an inspiration board to get yourself going…

happy wedding erin!!

xo - jacin :)