Struggling to Visualize Your Big Day

Something that I have been hearing a lot lately from my brides is they are having a hard time seeing their vision coming together for their wedding day despite the planning being almost complete. Even if you have everything together and every box checked, it's sometimes hard to visualize what it is going to look like on the day of.

This post will give you a few tools that I use while planning other couple’s weddings to make sure everything they want is going to come together like pieces of a puzzle.

Step One: Find your vision.

Pinterest is a must while figuring out the design you’re hoping for. I'm sure you are all familiar with Pinterest, but for those who aren't, it is a glorious black hole of ideas that will suck you in and make you want to redecorate your house, while trying a new recipe and crafting decorations for the party you just decided to throw.

Pinterest has millions of reference pictures usually linked to blogs that are there to spark inspiration for your next project. If you have a small idea of what you are looking for on the day of, type it into the search bar, create a board for your wedding, and pin everything that you even slightly like. Before you know it, you have a vision for the day. This not only gives you an idea of what you're looking for, but it provides your planner or coordinator a guideline for what you expect them to create. Some themes could mean different things to different people, so when you say “I want a magical forest wedding”, it would help me to see a few pictures of what that looks like to you.

This is an example of the Pinterest page I made for my own wedding.

Here are some pictures from my wedding that show similar elements as the pins.

Photography by Bakerture Photography & Video LLC

Step Two: Create a mood board.

After your Pinterest page is made, it's time to make a mood board. Pick your favorite pins and put them on together on the same picture. My favorite place to do this is Canva. You'll notice that many of the pins that you have saved are in the shape of mood boards already. Creating this gives you a real sense of the theme you're going for and gives you a guide to start collecting the things you need to create it.

Here is an example of the mood board I created as a guide for my recent styled shoot.

Here are some pictures from the styled shoot I planned form the board above as a guide.

Photography by Fallon Alley Photography

Step Three: Chart it all out.

The only way to make sure all your ducks are in a row is to write it all out in one place. List your budget, vendors, timelines, your meetings, etc. Highlight the things that still need to be done and make due dates for them; that way, you know what is actually pending completion. There are a ton of moving parts to planning a wedding, and it can feel like you have missed something along the way. Having it all written down in one place is one way to ease that worry.

Step Four: Keep yourself realistic.

Your day is going to be beautiful as long as you want it to be. But if you're expecting a million-dollar gala on a few thousand dollar budget, you're setting yourself up for failure with unrealistic expectations. The most important thing about your vision is being realistic and keeping the right attitude. Whether you're making the decorations yourself or paying for a whole to-do, as long as you're happy, it will all come together.

Step Five: Ask your Planner for help.

Your planner is your best resource when creating your vision or visualizing your day. They have more than likely planned several weddings and styled shoots before and will be quite good about designing and executing a vision. They should be able to draw it out for you or use a program to give you a better idea of what it will look like.

They should have also done all of the earlier steps for you and would be able to give you a peek of the design.

Sometimes when people get all wound up into the idea of creating the perfect wedding day, they forget that the entire purpose of the day is to be marrying the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. If you focus on how exciting and happy that is, then I guarantee worries about if everything is absolutely perfect will melt away, because the most perfect part is that two people who love each other are promising their lives to one another.