Sharing your Inspiration

If you've made the rounds of the wedding blogs, you've seen your share of inspiration boards.  At first, I didn't understand the draw, but I've come to love their usefulness.  For instance, when I was trying to explain to my mom what I wanted for my flowers, I started by just telling her what it would look like.  When she said that she really couldn't picture it, I moved to showing her some various pictures I liked from around the web.  I could tell that I still wasn't communicating the whole picture to her.  So I pulled together all of the images that best showed what I wanted, put it into one image, and -click- she got it.  Not only have these boards been helpful for me to explain my ideas, but since I'm a visual person, they are the best way for me to try out whether my ideas will work.

There are various types of inspiration boards:

Photo: The Perfect Palette

Color Palette Boards pull together items that have the color combinations that you want for your wedding.  For instance, if you see a dress with the same exact colors of blue and pink you want for your big day, you could add that to your color palette board.  As you collect more images with the right color combo, your color palette board will help you choose the details that align with your vision.

 

Photo: CastelBride Couture

Detail Boards show your favorite options for a particular wedding detail.  Like, a wedding invitation detail board would highlight the invitation look that you'd like for your own invitations.  You could have a detail board for each major design aspect of your wedding (I love these...I have ones for my hair, flowers, cake, invitations!)



Photo: With This Favor Wedding Blog



Inspiration Boards are the "big picture" boards that illustrate the feeling you want at your wedding.  If you're going for a vintage feel, you might have some photos of antiques (chandeliers, jewelry, decor) along with some images from other weddings that pulled off the vintage feel particularly well.

So, how do you make one of these boards?  Glad you asked.  You can go about it in lots of different ways depending on your comfort level with design software and online tools.  Here are some tips for getting started.

1. Find and save images related to your wedding.  Look for colors that work, other weddings that have the same theme as yours, or just images that strike you for one reason or another.
2. Decide what type of board you're going to create...do you want to visualize your options for updos for the wedding?  Or maybe you want to show your florist the colors you plan to use in the wedding? 
3. Collect the images that relate to the focus of the board (all of your favorite cake images, etc) and add them to a design program like photoshop.  If you're a little intimidated by design software, try something like MS Publisher to start off.  Save your collage as an image like jpg.
4. Or, join one of the online communities, like Style Me Pretty's Style Circle, where you can create and post your board online. 

Sound like fun?  Each week, I'll share a board or two...I (and other brides out there) would love to see yours as well!