It was in reading some recent wedding-related fiction that it dawned on me that the mystery surrounding themes, schemes  and design for weddings still exists and can be very confusing.

What do we mean by theme and design and do you need to worry about it? Some people imagine that having a theme is a very exotic and expensive statement and not for your typical wedding. Or more likely, imaginations run wild and images of children’s parties, fancy dress and over the top decorations  all spring to mind and for most brides this is absolutely not what they have in mind for an elegant and timeless wedding celebration.

But theme need not mean this and in most wedding celebrations it does not, my fictional book excluded! For the most part, our clients want to inject their personalities into the wedding in some way so this can be viewed as a theme, albeit not a ‘named’ one. Often they want a certain ‘feel’ to the day such as rustic and cute or elegant and grand and the venue and all suppliers are carefully chosen bearing this ‘feel’ in mind. The theme might naturally lead to the use of certain colours in stationery or table décor (gold and silver are opulent, often elegant colours) as do certain textures and materials (raffia, wicker, twine, natural linen are all quite rustic/country style in feel). These are all things that help develop a theme and a mood on the day and there is not a cowboy hat in sight!

And don’t worry about having a theme from the start; it might develop over time and you may just decide to stick to the use of certain colours.  By paying attention to the little details such as the look of the table (being careful not to overfill) and the overall look of the room you will most certainly have a unique wedding.

And for every rule there is an exception. By far our most highly themed  wedding celebration to date involved a tour through Russia, Morocco and a circus workshop via a very elegant and dramatic lunch! For the full story, take a look at the Wedding of Fiona and Michael.

And if you fancy a wedding related light summer read, I can recommend Revenge of the Wedding Planner by Sharon Owens. The book and story is great fun, although neither the Halloween related Pagan wedding of rockstars nor the day to day detail of the job bears any resemblance to our wedding planning reality here at The Bespoke Wedding Company!