Wedding Week - The Inspiration Board

Today is our wedding anniversary (yay!) and being as this is the first one that has come around since I starting randomly writing about whatever comes into my head  blogging, I feel justified in spending this week waffling happily on about various wedding-related topics.

First up, let's take a look at the inspiration board (natch) that I created to pull together the three million photos and wedding mag clippings that I had accumulated during the over-excited planning stage into one coherent style:

I was going for a relaxed, organic, rustic elegance feel with a vintage twist - y'know, barefoot bride, natural flowers and twigs in vases, lanterns and streamers in the trees, dining on the lawn, and so on. I did actually try the dress on (it's by Stephanie Allin) but it turned out to be a lot browner in person than in the picture, and despite my enduring fondness for all things coffee-coloured, a brown wedding dress would have been taking it too far even for me, so I ended up having a rather marvellous dressmaker in Chester create a one-off bespoke latte-coloured-silk-with-French-lace-overlay confection which I loved so much that I still, er, wear it around the house on a more regular basis than I'm prepared to publically admit. Oh, and my wonderful bridesmaid wore a brown coffee-coloured dress instead :-)

Here's a more detailed version with a bunch of extra pictures:

And here's a picture board that I created using equivalent images from the actual Big Day:

I think the day definitely had the relaxed, organic, rustic elegant feel I was going for, but we ended up with a slant that was more contemporary than vintage, which really came out of the fact that we held the reception at our very own casa (more on How To Throw A Wedding In A Tiny House coming up later this week), and we wanted the wedding decor to fit the style of our house (ie contemporary). I also went mad for green chrysanthemums, which are a pretty contemporary style flower.

And need I point out how pretty Miss Penelope looks in her floral collar? I think the florist thought I was joking when I put dog collars on the list along with the bouquets and button holes.

Any other inspiration board fiends out there? Anyone celebrating an anniversary, or planning a wedding? Do tell!