Wedding Wednesday: Defining the Aesthetic

Defining the aesthetic that Jon and I wanted for our wedding was a pretty organic process.  Like every other bride-to-be these days, I had several months of pinning under my belt before we were even engaged, so I was very aware of the trends in the industry when we started talking about the look and feel that we would try to achieve.  However, we felt very strongly that our wedding should be a manifestation of who we are as a couple.  We didn't want to jump on popular ideas - taking photos with whimsical props, say, or hiring a Vespa as a getaway car - if they didn't feel like us.  (We're not quirky enough for oversized balloons, and Jon's memories of scooter-riding are tied up in his trip to Vietnam in 2008.  If those things are you, cool; they're just not us.)

Jon and I knew from the start that we imagined our wedding with a country/elegant feel: country without being rustic and elegant without being glamorous.  Our venue fit that perfectly, which made it a natural springboard for planning all the smaller pieces that would go into our aesthetic.  Jon felt strongly about wearing a morning suit, so that got added to the puzzle, too, as did our desire to keep things as fresh and seasonal as possible.

The barn at Bruisyard Hall, where our ceremony and reception will be held, has beautiful pale wooden beams.  We wanted to take advantage of the simplicity of the space by using similarly natural colors.  I loved all of the romantic images I'd seen that included pinks, and we decided to veer towards peaches and corals rather than anything bolder.  Jon suggested incorporating as much greenery as possible, too, thereby bringing the beauty of Suffolk inside; luckily, the English countryside abounds in dusty pinks and deep greens at the end of summer.

We agreed that Jon's morning suit wouldn't be solid black, as that felt a bit funereal.  He wasn't crazy about navy, so the only other viable option was gray, and from there we picked up charcoal as an accent color.  I then chose gold as our metallic - I like how it pops against grey but is slightly more subtle against pinks.

Armed with these colors and a few key words to define our aesthetic, we headed off to meet with the rest of our vendors...

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