Kelsey McKinnon - Modern Wedding: Creating a Celebration That Looks and Feels Like You

For Josh

Contents

Introduction

Its hard to say exactly when the wedding industry erupted into the prodigious enterprise that its become, peddling mass-produced gowns and lavish parties that people can barely afford, but attitudes have thankfully begun to shift. Couples today want a carefully cultivated celebration thats unpretentious, beautifully designed, and reflective of their unique partnershipbut what exactly does that look like, and how do you pull it off?

As an editor at a wedding magazine, I am always on the lookout for examples of weddings that embody this forward-thinking ethos, and have been lucky enough to get to know the people behind them and learn about their creative processes. In the course of my work (and in preparation for my own wedding), I have reviewed thousands of celebrations from across the country (and farther afield), and this exhaustive search eventually culminated in this book.

One of the most important things Ive learned is that a couples budget does not determine whether they have a beautiful and meaningful wedding. The key to planning a memorable event isnt how much you spend, how grand it appears, or how fancy your planner is; its about finding special ways to convey your core values. In this book, you are given the tools to reclaim your wedding day as something you can design (and actually pull off) in a way that is truly authentic. This means embracing your natural surroundings; celebrating timeless ideas and traditions; and focusing on the emotional qualities of the day, not just how it will look in pictures.

Each chapter unpacks an element of a weddingfrom stationery and gifts to flowers and tablescapeswith examples that will appeal to couples who care about how things are made, who are conscious of how the choices they make impact the world around them, and who are not influenced by trends. Modern dresses, minimalist ceremony structures, naked cakes, and frameworthy invitation suites are all illustrated with photos from real weddings. Interspersed between these chapters are case studies featuring couples who were able to translate what is most important to them and their relationships into weddings that were totally unique. Theres a destination fete in the Tuscan countryside, an artful house party in Brooklyn, a same-sex wedding in Big Sur, a new age celebration in Kauai, and more. While the examples range in style, budget, and location and represent various cultures and religious traditions, the couples behind them all share the belief that authenticity on this day matters above all else.

There are many ways to throw a modern wedding. Let these pages give you the freedom to design a wedding that is wholly you, whatever that may look like, by taking a closer look at the things that add meaning to your life and finding ways to incorporate them into your celebration. If it comes from the heart, it will be beautiful.

This new spin on the classic blue-and-white palette features a soft velvet runner, mismatched vintage plating, a faded blue linen napkin, and a blue-and-white deckle-edged menu with the couples custom heraldry.

The Color Story

One of the first things youll be asked after you get engaged is What are your colors? (Translation: Whats the color scheme of your wedding?) Before you can answer that question, youll need to determine what kind of feeling you want your wedding to evoke (think modern and eccentric or traditional and feminine).

Creating a mood board, whether its a physical bulletin board or a digital one, such as a Pinterest board, is the best way to help you establish a general tone and feeling for your wedding.

As you cull pictures for your board, dont limit yourself to wedding images. A wedding represents the confluence of so many different lifestyle categories (fashion, music, design, food and wine, travel), and pulling references from a wide range of nonwedding sources will help make your day more unique. Include pictures of anything that inspires you, be it a favorite flower, a piece of artwork you love, a page from a fashion magazine or a book on interior design, a family heirloom, or a swatch of fabric. Try to incorporate images that are meaningful to your relationshipsomething you purchased on a trip, the menu from your favorite restaurant.

As this mosaic comes together, take a step back and look at the big picture: Does everything feel minimalist? Rustic? Edgy? More or less traditional? Once you extrapolate a few key words to define your mood board, you will be ready to focus on the actual color palette (or, the color story).

Traditionally, couples pick two or three hues to make up their color story (the most classic combination being white, blush, and green), but a newer approach is to select a wider range of tones to create a more nuanced palette (for example, a moody autumnal story of olive, maroon, cream, pumpkin, and navy). More relaxed couples may even be open to letting their color story naturally reveal itself as they go through the process of designing their wedding instead of pre-selecting hues.

The colors that you choose should obviously be ones that you love (these are usually apparent on your mood board), but they should also be reflective of the season (What flowers will be in bloom when you get married? Will the surrounding landscape be lush or dry?) and the colors of your venue (if its a dark, wood-paneled room, you may need to use light colors). And, of course, they should complement one another. If you arent sure which colors work well together, order a Pantone book or use paint samples from a hardware store to try out different combinations. Pin these colors to your mood board so you have one centralized reference point.

Establishing a color story early and being mindful of it as you move through the design process will make each individual decision you face much easier (as youll have essentially narrowed down the options for yourself in advance) and will leave you with a wedding that feels considered the whole way through.