“A wedding dress is both an intimate and personal for a woman –

it must reflect the personality and style of the bride. “

Carolina Herrera

With Spring around the corner, and so many newly engaged brides, blogging this awesome shoot centered around the wedding dress and giving some time and stress saving tips seems very apropos.

In my opinion, to plan and style a wedding seamlessly, there is a progression that is ideal, you can see why the finding the perfect wedding dress is one of the very first steps.

STEP 1: SET YOUR BUDGET

Determine what you can and will spend on the entire wedding. Then break down the amount into a line item for each area of the wedding. Hire an experienced planner to help you with this from the start. Also, there are many amazing resources to help you determine how to budget like:https://www.realsimple.com/static/pdfs/budget_worksheet.pdf

STEP 2:FIND THE VENUE

The venue will take a large portion of your budget and the aesthetic of it will also be a huge source of inspiration for the wedding design. It also sets the tone of how formal or informal the wedding will be. One of our favorite Arizona venues, El Chorro is featured here :

https://sarahsweddinggarden.com/2017/09/marian-mark-el-chorro-wedding/

STEP 3: FIND THE DRESS

Finding the perfect wedding dress  is pretty crucial to the overall wedding experience. It’s the inspiration for the attire of the entire wedding party. http://lovelybride.com where we created this inspiration shoot is an excellent source for an amazing bridal gown shopping experience.

STEP 4: SHOP FOR BRIDESMAIDS GOWNS AND SUITS

Although you may have a great color palette in your mind’s eye, it may be really difficult to make it a reality if the colors are difficult to find. Some gorgeous colors and styles on trend for 2018 can be found here:

for bridesmaids:

http://www.joannaaugust.com  BHLDN

for the guys:

Magro Clothing

STEP 5:DESIGN DECOR & FLORAL

Living in such a visual online world, it is incredibly easy to first go to Pinterest or Magazines to draw from for inspiration. Then it’s also very easy to just replicate what you see in the already completed images. This results in every wedding looking like ones before it. To create a very personal and unique wedding day that reflects the true personality of the couple, inspiration could come from answering questions like:

• what are their favorite colors?
• where are some of their favorite places to travel to?
• how do they want to decorate their new home together?
• what works of art speak to them or what cherished objects do they own?

Often digging a little deeper into WHO the couple is will help to create a more meaningful and personal experience.

It’s also KEY to have the previous 4 steps in place before the decor design really starts because those steps dictate a lot of the design. Sometimes our clients won’t have the venue, bridal gown or wedding party attire figured out yet. We do the full floral and decor proposal, without the first four steps taken, undoubtedly there will be changes to the floral proposal along the way. We’ve found after creating for over 400 weddings, that the most seamless weddings and least stressed out clients stem from following this wedding planning model.

photography Leslie D Photography | wedding dress “Lanai” by Katie May, “Azriel” by Watters, “Tarren” by Louvienne, “Lake” by Lovers Society via Lovely Bride| model Kendall Hyzdu via Agency Arizona | Makeup Arielle Rondeau| Hair Emily Hughes| cake Ruze Cake House | invitation Freed Hands| hand painted backdrop Christine Olmstead| ribbon and styling cloth Frou Frou Chic

FEATURED ON TRENDY BRIDE