Expert Wedding Planning Tips: Defining Your Vision

It’s Wednesday, and you know what that means, right?

Time to crack this whole wedding planning thing together!

Over the coming weeks, our expert contributors will be covering a wide range of topics in the wedding planning and designing process from start to finish. So follow along for all their expert tips, tricks, and helpful resources. (Find out more about each of our expert contributors here.)

Last week, top London wedding planner Andri of Always Andri Wedding Design shared her first few essential steps to wedding planning – so if you’re newly engaged, it’s a great place to start!

Pocketful Of Dreams

Today, I’m thrilled to introduce you all to Michelle and Vicki of the UK wedding and event design company Pocketful Of Dreams. These talented ladies have such a creative and innovative approach to wedding design and are a big source of inspiration to me personally. Their gorgeous mood boards and events blow my mind time and time again!

So listen up, ladies (and gents), as Pocketful of Dreams guides us through the wedding design process…

We’re delighted to be sharing an insight into our world of creative event design at Pocketful of Dreams. In this new series for Bridal Musings, we’ll be sharing our top tips to help you think like an event designer when planning your stylish wedding day. Everything from how to decide upon a concept or style right through to those specific details that reflect your shared passions, as well as elements that will make the day flow with ease.

A good exercise is to sit back and play it out in your head. Now imagine what will happen when you wake up on the day of your wedding; what will you do, who will you see, what will they say to you, and how does it make you feel? Then, move on to getting ready, the ceremony, dinner, and so on. It may feel a little silly at first, but spending time playing out the scenario in your head, from morning to night, may give you a few surprising insights into what’s really important to you.

I bet it wasn’t the color of the tablecloths on your mind. Sure, those finer details can help you create a really beautiful day full of stylish touches, but they’re not the most important aspects. You must start with those that are core to your happiness, as these will help you focus on everything else.

Think about what you don’t want.

Sitting down to think about what you really want from your wedding day can be scary, so approach it from a less daunting angle and perhaps think about what you don’t want.

List out any of those traditional aspects usually associated with weddings that perhaps aren’t that important to you. Maybe you’re not keen on a first dance, perhaps you loathe formal dinners, or don’t really have a sweet tooth. Sure, we’re getting into specifics here, but sometimes the no-go list can help us formalize what is important on the flip side.

Now let’s think about weddings – but not your own

We’ve all been to parties that we loved and those that, well, perhaps we loved a little less. Think back to those days and pick out the elements that made them really work or not work so well; was it the food, the atmosphere, the entertainment? What you notice as being conducive to creating a memorable experience will shed some light on those aspects you can focus on on your own.

What do you want your guests to say about it?

Finally, imagine your guests talking about your wedding day to a stranger. What would you want them to say about it, and more importantly, how would you want them to feel?

Think about the entire process.

Getting married is, of course, about more than just one day. So think about the entire process of being engaged and planning your wedding day. Do you want some time to enjoy being engaged first before you start thinking about specifics? Do you want to be totally involved in the planning process, or can you split the tasks between the two of you, your friends and family? Do you need to bring in help from a professional in certain areas? Do you want to get really creative and hands-on, crafting unique touches and creative aspects, or do you want to bring someone on board who can do all that for you?

Also, think about how you want other people to feel about your wedding journey. Do you want them involved from the start? Do you want them to help you bring your day to life, or do you want to spoil them with a beautiful day full of surprises?

This should be a fun process where you learn more about each other and are reminded of all those wonderful reasons you’re getting hitched in the first place. Don’t just focus on the result; enjoy the here and now; this is all part of ‘getting married.’
By following these five simple steps, you should now have your wedding vision nailed. This is the foundation you need to create a one-of-a-kind wedding day, full of personal and unique little touches that scream YOU!

By asking yourself these questions, you can start to work out what is important to the two of you and where to focus your efforts and attention. This is your wedding vision, and by having one that’s exactly representative of the kind of day you want allows everything else to fall into place naturally, guiding all those important decisions you make along the way.

My guess is no matter what your vision is for your day; you want it to be memorable and totally reflective of the two of you. So, in our next installment, we’ll be talking about how you go about defining a meaningful concept for your wedding day, so your day is not only exactly as you imagined it would be, but it’s also representative of who you are as a couple.

Thanks so much to Michelle and Vicki of Pocketful Of Dreams for sharing these fab tips on defining your wedding vision.

Of course, nothing beats working one-on-one with talented wedding planners and designers, such as Pocketful Of Dreams, but these steps are a great place to start!