aBree Fashion

So it has been in my plans all along to do a little wedding planning series about my wedding - and now that it has been over a year I am finally trying to tackle it! I am excited about putting down my inspiration and ideas behind my DIY wedding! I hope you enjoy this little segment!

First I will talk about my inspiration! I have ALWAYS been into wedding planning so I had thousands of photos saved on my computer (from back before the pinterest days) and many many more on my pinterest boards. I went through all the photos and selected ones that I was most inspired by for my wedding. I made files on my computer of these photos (by category) and I also created a pinterest account just for my wedding - I didn't want anyone I knew to see it so I named it something that no one would find (this was back before secret boards) and I also put together a wedding binder.

Colors - I knew from the get-go what I wanted my colors to be. Navy, mint, sparkle, all shades of gold, and a touch of ivory.

Bridal Attire - I already had all my material for my gown (been collecting it since 2010) and I had the bottom portion of the gown designed but I had NO idea what I wanted to do with the top... There are also about a hundred earrings and shoes pinned..... those were definitely the two hardest things to find for me. Took me many months of ordering and sending things back until it was perfect. My gown was such a unique color it made matching difficult. We also had a difficult time selecting a wedding ring for me, I loved and ordered a green amethyst stone ring but - we decided a diamond was more classic.

^^my first basic sketch of my gown

Groom - Taylor was pretty easy, we knew he'd have a navy suit and some sort of ivory/golden tie that went well with my dress. The tie proved again to be a difficult task but it ended up working out perfectly! And lucky for me he wanted a yellow gold ring (like me) - I like when wedding rings match.

Wedding Party - I already had my bridesmaids picked out and I believe I knew early on that I was going to make them silk taffeta skirts (you can see in the photo of the J.Crew window - I loved the long wrap skirt), I for sure wanted them floor length. I was dreaming of having them wear navy sequin 3/4 length shirts BUT that was no where to be found for a few months until magically at J.Crew Factory's Black Friday sale they popped up on MAJOR sale and we bought all of them!

Hair and Makeup - I at first wanted an up-do but more of a side pony type thing to show my hair, but once I designed the top of my gown with all the beaded detail I decided to do a full up-do. I wanted natural golden/peach makeup. I also was maybe going to do flowers in my hair (again, before flower crowns got SO popular) but again - when I added so much detail to the bodice and with the skirt being so elaborate I decided against it.

Announcements - I saw these AMAZING mint with gold foil invitations on pinterest and knew I NEEDED them. I wanted to make them classy and use all my wedding colors. I am a curly cursive girl and wanted a gorgeous font. I played with the idea of some extra fun graphic detail but in the end decided to keep it simple.

Decorations - I wanted a hanging timeline so lots of the decorations I pinned had to do with that. Mostly I wanted flowers to be the focus, and candles. I used the idea on pinterest to make the huge written canvases and CD favors. I would have loved to do more things with hanging/streaming lights and I love the ribbon chair (bottom right) - but... my budget did not allow for that. I LOVED the fun tassel idea with words and so I incorporated that into my wedding too.

Flowers - I wanted gold/ivory/peach colors in my bouquet but for the rest of the flowers I didn't really have a preference - since navy and mint (my colors) aren't really flower colors. I love mixing different types, shapes, and colors of flowers and luckily I trusted my florist (and Aunt) enough that I knew it'd be amazing.