A Wedding Brand could last for your wedding weekend, or set a design theme about a passion you will share for your whole life ahead. But before we define what it means to have a wedding Brand, let us say, “Happy New Year! And Happy Wedding Inspirations!”

We know some of you are celebrating your first New Year as an engaged couple.  Bobby Marks Designs wishes you both a Happy New Year and genuine congratulations on your Engagement.

A Brand for your wedding is built of your own passions and dreams as a couple.

Enjoy Your Engagement Before Rushing into Plans.

Finding Your Wedding Brand:  Watching Trends for 2019

In our previous blog we listed a few first steps toward figuring out the overall design of your wedding experience.  We also suggested you save some time just to enjoy your new status as an engaged couple.

But when you are ready, our previous blog and this one are here to start you off on your wedding design work 101.

Our two blog articles will help you find your personal wedding “brand.”  So you might want to read or review our previous article.  And you will discover the “inspo” or mood board as well as the first thinking steps to your design for the wedding.

Of course as professional designers, we are ready to give you all the help and guidance you need in figuring out your wedding brand.  As we design initially, we have to leave room for growth and adjustment.  A plan is an organic thing.  Remember, preliminary decisions can always be changed and adjusted once you begin a basic plan, theme or a personalized “Brand” for the look of your wedding.

Wedding Inspiration: A Wedding Day Brand for Your Inspo Board

What is a wedding Day Brand?  Designers and brides have developed this term to bring all the visual details of a wedding into a unified look, like the logo of a product that has a remarkable brand.

A Theme or Brand Can Be a Color, like Burgundy Red.

The color of burgundy inspired this mood boardlook.

Martha Stewart says, “What does it mean to “brand your day”?  In a nutshell, it’s about finding signature visual elements that reflect your personalities and suit your venue.”  She added, your brand “will be referenced throughout your celebration—from the design of the save-the-dates to the reception decor.”

Find Inspo to Design Your Brand from Any Source

So the “Inspo” or Inspiration for your look can come from any source.  We’ve seen wedding couples use many types of inspiration.  One couple designed their celebrations around a favorite set of antique silverware.  One couple used their love of wild animal prints.  And yet another couple used a tennis theme for a brand because they both shared passion for tennis.

Likewise, “At Martha Stewart Weddings,” they say, ” we’ve seen couples design unique, memorable celebrations around a favorite blue-and-white china pattern, a love for bold stripes, or a shared passion for sailing.”

1. Wedding Inspo: Your Wedding “Brand” is A Personal Style Symbol For Your Wedding Day Experience

Likewise the stationery expert, Cheree Berry asks her “new clients to fill out a questionnaire reflecting on their travels, cultural heritage, and favorite music.”  This helps them to think about common passions that can be transformed into unique wedding ideas.  Cheree Berry adds, “Once you’ve established some details of your life to highlight, you’ll be able to sprinkle winks and nods [to your brand] throughout your wedding.”

Thus, your wedding brand, could be a silhouette of a chandelier, a botanical print of a hydrangea blossom, a jeweled fly-fishing reel or a cool hand-drawn monogram.  But what ever it is, it will be a product of your wedding inspiration or wedding Inspo,” as we like to say.   And the best tool to find your wedding brand is the mood board or Inspo Board, as we stated in our previous blog.

2. Wedding Brand: Your Wedding Venue is Key

Once you have chosen your venue, be sure to make photos or cut them out of brochures.  The first step to creating a mood board is to get a picture of your ceremony location, reception location and any other wedding photo locations.

Gazebo among the flowers of a garden helps brand a wedding "romantic."

Branded Romantic: A Garden Gazebo Sets the Scene.

  • Use the large images of these spaces, both ceremony and reception, as the backdrop of the mood board.
  • Choose a Big Image for your Ceremony Space.  Add another big image for your reception space.
  • Then add your color palette.  A main color, an accent color, and the wood, stone and metal you will showcase.

Special Notes on Inspo Board Building:

Then, as you browse different magazines, add bits of furniture and decor that inspire you.  Lighting fixtures, chairs, floral arrangements, backgrounds for ceremony, tablescapes for the reception, and stationary.

  • No doubt you will soon see quite a lot of wedding elements piling onto your Inspo or Mood Board.
  • Do these elements work coherently?
  • No doubt you will find yourself doing some editing at this point.

For example, Flowers, butterflies, hearts, doves, your canoe paddles and an elegant monogram might be an awful lot of themes to mash into one wedding brand or vision.  Please edit.  Think about what you most want people to remember from your wedding.

3. Wedding Inspo: The Big Question

As Martha Stewart recommends, take a breath, take a ‘step back’ and ask yourself, “Is there anything here that doesn’t quite work?” 

Brand your wedding with elegance with a thick, beautiful nvitation

Even your font establishes your wedding brand.

Do this for all of your mood boards and spaces.

  • On the one hand, you must be happy with the inspiration of each different space.
  • On the other hand, you want to see some relationship between the spaces when you you compare the spaces with one another.

For example, compare your ceremony and reception mood boards.  Do you notice any huge differences in style, color or design?

Will you confuse or delight your guests?  We hope with our help, at BobbyMark’s Designs, you will be taking your guests on a cohesive journey they will love.

It’s a process and we know how to help you do it.  With a mood board full of brand ideas, you can make edits.  And we will help you put together your cohesive wedding day brand.

4. From the Designer’s (Wedding Inspo) Desk at Bobbymark’s Designs: What is a Motif?

In the world of design, details mean focusing on (at least) 5 special concepts:

tones, shapes, colors,angles,and textures. 

Become aware and sensitive to these concepts and they will guide you well.  These concepts help you design your wedding look.  Do you want to know the secret to the most professional way to gain a consistent look between the spaces of your wedding event?  Choose a few elements that will recur throughout your wedding.

Brand your wedding with a Bee and give honey to the guests.

A Bee could inspire a wedding brand in a spring garden.

Example:  If both you and your fiance love honeybees, then perhaps we will see one elegantly engraved on your invitations as part of your monogram.

A little botanical print style of bee might adorn the welcome sign to the reception.

Perhaps later a few bees made of frosting will be featured nestling among the sugar flowers of the wedding cake.  Still later, small jars of local, hand crafted honey might be the featured gift for your wedding guests, labeled with the same monogram and bee.  In the creative industry this is called a motif.

We know concert violinists who married. They featured a little sketch of a violin around which they entwined their initials on their invitation, programs, and other signage.  Two edible white chocolate violins crowned the wedding cake. Signs on each table featured musical notes and a strand of words from a romantic song.

The Motif: a Summary

Definition:  We repeat, a motif is a small element of a recurring subject, theme or idea.

Brand your wedding with music in many ways.

A Violin with sheet music, jewelry and flowers inspires a couples’s romantic wedding brand.

(For a bride and groom who love to sail, the motif could be sailing ship.) A motif can be a recurring form, shape, or figure, in a design. Likewise, a motif is a dominant idea or feature. (A bit of architecture works for a motif, like a simple line drawing of your church steeple, barn doors or single castle tower-turret.)

With a Motif, you can subtly tie every element of your wedding day together from the beginning to the end of a wedding day.

 5. Choose the Right Venue for You as a Couple

It’s been our experience that choosing the right venue is integral to creating a well-designed wedding experience.  More than any other single thing, your venue will help you determine the look, the feel and the theme of your wedding experience.

Example:  If your heart is set on a Great Gatsby Wedding, an old Western barn might not be the best choice to go with the diamonds, feathers and pearls.  Likewise if your heart is set on a satin ball gown, you might not really want a beach setting.  

Wedding Inspo Notes:  Find Your Motif in Your Location and Architecture

You want the location and style of the wedding to match with the vision.  BobbyMark’s Design wants to see you choose a place that is consistent with your wedding theme, colors and overall style.

Whatever place you choose, it’s important to ensure that your furniture and decor is consistent with your setting and venue.

Brand of winter roses inspired this couple's wedding.

Yes, holly, roses and cozy sweaters can be your wedding brand.

To a certain extent your venue will determine the look and feel of your wedding and set the tone and theme of your wedding.  Grandfather’s old wagon wheel might not work so well in the ballroom of a grand hotel, but if your venue is a rustic barn, it might enhance the decor perfectly. 

6. Wedding Design Caution: Be True to Your Theme

If you’ve chosen a theme for your wedding, make sure every detail of your wedding fits into this theme.  You are about to be overwhelmed with hundreds of beautiful choices.

You will see so many options in stationary, flowers, furniture, and décor elements that you are almost doomed to fall in love with something that is outside your Theme or Brand.  What should you do? You have two options.

  1. Just Go With It:  If a certain element clashes with your theme, who cares? It is your wedding.
  2. Be Faithful to your Design: Use an exquisite eye for every detail.  Make sure all of the décor, floral arrangements and accessories are consistent with your vision.  That is why you hire the professionals, like BobbyMark’s Designs.

7.  A Real Eye For Details:  Extend Your Vision to the Stationary

Work with your stationery designer or wedding planner to choose a font you will use throughout your wedding.  This means that your save the dates cards, wedding invitations, menus, programs, welcome signs, and bar signs (basically anything that includes text) will have the same font used.  This is a very noticeable detail.

Overall you want your theme to be evident through every detail of your wedding.  Remember, the magic question before making a decision about every detail is, “Does this fit into my overall theme?”  Never underestimate the power of an eye for design.

Once again, the owners and staff of BobbyMark’s Design wish you Health, Wealth and Happiness in the Coming New Year.

In this Year of 2019, May life grant you …

12 months of love,
52 weeks of joy,
365 days of success,
8760 hours of good health,
52600 minutes of inner peace
3153600 seconds of happiness