Themes and Colors, oh my!

I would be lying if I said I didn't start thinking about wedding plans within MINUTES of getting engaged Its true! After the crying and the hugging and calling my mom, I started thinking about colors and people and food choices!

Like most girls, I had been "planning" my future wedding for years! I would gather pictures online, write down ideas on post its, and cut out things I liked from magazines or ads. One of the things I always loved about weddings was the theme. The theme of a wedding, or the color choices, really helped tell the story of the couple getting married. Back in the early stages of planning my dream wedding, I wanted a winter wedding focused on a dark red color. I felt it was very sensual and also bold. I even found a beautiful dress that was traditional white with red accents. The dress has become far more popular over the years.

As I look back at those early dreams, I realize how much I focused things around my high school. I was dreaming of a wedding with dark red and silver, and my high school colors were crimson and silver. I loved my high school years, but that would have been a little too odd!

As I got older, and my tastes evolved, I thought about how I wanted to feel on my wedding day. I wanted a man who loved me more than anything. I wanted the sun shining and the ocean in view. I wanted to feel breezy and carefree! And since my favorite color is Orange, EVERYTHING would be orange! I can see my bridesmaids cringing right now! I bet they are glad I didn't decide to go that direction!

One day, I found the Disney Bridal Collection by Alfred Angelo and my heart immediately clung to the Ariel dress. It would go with the beach scene I'd always imagined. It was light and breezy. It was beautiful! So I clung to that image, and when I met my Pre-Husband, I could see the two of us getting married, and me in that dress!

After we had been together 2 years, the topic of marriage came up a few times with me and the Pre-Hubby. Usually it was in some sort of joking manner, but nonetheless, the subject had been discussed. One of the common things brought up was how we should have a pirate wedding. We would have our officiant dressed like Jack Sparrow, and we could have all our guests dress up. As cheesy and nontraditional as it was, it was perfect for the two of us! We were fun people who enjoyed the cheesy things in life! And the Ariel dress would go perfect in this setting.

10 minutes after getting engaged, I turned to the love of my life and said "So, now we need to start planning our beach-y pirate themed wedding!" and he was totally on board! It was great! We started with a simple color scheme of turquoise, sandy brown, and white. Then, we started looking up decorations we could use. We found treasure chests, fake gold coins, small bags of jewels, and even tons of props we could buy for a photobooth to be set up at the reception! I always knew I didn't want a lot of flowers, or any at all, in my wedding. Because of this, when looking for decorations I focused mainly on the reception tables and small decorations. If we were gonna do a pirate theme, I still wanted to keep it classy. Sadly though, that theme didn't stick around.

After a month of looking things up and trying to hash out other parts of wedding planning, the Pre-Hubby had a stroke of genius. It started with the realization that we couldn't have a traditional first dance with the song that is "Our Song". You see, our song was chosen on a drunken karaoke night by random. While the song is PERFECT, its not one you can have a nice dance to! Here, take a listen for yourself!

So we decided we needed to pick a song that meant something to both of us and that we could dance to. That led me to start looking up songs by the man himself, Mr. Sinatra. Sinatra is a love that we both have. And it extends to all the old classic singers - Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, Bing Crosby. As we listened to "The Way You Look Tonight", my Pre-Hubby jumped from off the couch and starting spouting off wildly "We have to change the theme! I've got it! Rat Pack! We have to have a vintage rat pack wedding. I can wear a pin stripe suit, and we can play all Rat Pack music during the reception." I have never seen this man so excited about something like this. And with that, I couldn't say no! I knew it was a wonderful idea. I knew it was something that would really reflect us and would help make that one day even more special. We settled on the same turquoise color, but added black and silver. A Rat Pack wedding theme was born.

So there you have it! The process I went through to get to my wedding theme. I still intend to keep it classy and only have light touches of that Vintage Vegas feel. It helps that the Pre-Husband and I just spent 5 days in Vegas for a friends wedding! It helped me gather more ideas on how I could pull the whole event together. Did you have a wedding theme? Or did you just choose a color scheme? What process did you go through to get to the end result? I wanna hear from you!

Peace and Good JuJu,
Holly