Decoration Inspiration

Once the details started to come together on where and when the wedding would be, Brendan and I started brainstorming about what we wanted the wedding to look and feel like. It didn’t take too long for us to decide on a theme, of sorts.

Living in the countryside of New England, there is certainly no shortage of rustic charm. Farms are scattered across our town and the neighboring ones, and we love the feeling of being steeped in history and tradition.  So when we started looking for inspiration and saw all the beautiful rustic and vintage weddings out there, we were definitely excited to incorporate some element of vintage decor into our day.

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The only problem is, neither of us is particularly “country” in style. I grew up riding horses, and Brendan’s family home is pretty rustic, but our style is typically a bit more modern. We ended up going with a more vintage theme, emphasizing the soft and romantic features.

Vintage romance (source)

As far as colors go, I was adamant that:

1) We won't go totally New England in theme and have a lot of deep red in our color scheme. This is mostly just personal preference, and kind of random, really, but I wanted a theme that was inspired by the fall colors and New England feel, not one that was lifted straight from the farm next door to our venue. I think this goes back to our being more quirky than country (see above), but I wanted to avoid too much of a country hoedown feel at our wedding. For the same reason, I didn't want too many pumpkins, wheat stalks, apples, or corn cobs - I think Brendan actually disagreed with me on this, but now that he sees my vision more clearly, I think he's on board!

and 2) I don't want to run with the late-October thing and have a Halloween themed orange-and-black wedding. Sure, it's totally possible to have an elegant Halloween-themed wedding, and I even saw some really neat vintage-style Halloween decorations in the stores last October, but again, it just felt a little too theme-y for our style. And we're not Goth enough to pull it off!

But at the same time, I really did want to play up the beautiful fall colors outside. I wanted everything to feel warm and cozy, well-worn and comforting. So instead of specific colors, we went with a palette of fall shades:

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With an emphasis on ivory, mustard yellow, deep orange, and brown. The deep orange in the picture above may not be as obvious as it could be. Picture it being a little more.....cognac, or rust:

This is pretty much the exact bridesmaids' dress color (source)

These colors should help us play up the romance a bit! There will be elements of lace, pheasant feathers, and burlap to help bring the earthiness and romance in, as well.

Up next - the details about the decor and all the DIY projects I'm tackling!