Picture this:
You think you know exactly what you want your wedding to look like, but you’re having a hard time getting everyone else on board with your vision. Have you ever thought of creating a mood board? Sometimes words just aren’t as helpful as a visual that shows color and style, and importantly, evokes a particular feeling from within. We created one for our own wedding and were really happy with the results!
What is a mood board?
A mood board is a way to visually represent how you want something to look and feel without putting it into words. The idea is actually a rip-off from the advertising world that often uses this process when they’re working on a new campaign; it helps you work through big picture brainstorming, and then focus your final idea.
How it works:
Creating the mood board can be a fun exercise that you do with your partner to “kick-off” the planning process. It can help you figure out exactly what you want your day to look and feel like, set the tone for how you want to work together as a team and make communicating your ideas to vendors much easier.
Supplies and Steps:
- Lots and lots of magazines! From design and wedding publications, to pop culture fashion magazines and catalogs, spend some time ripping out images that call-out to you…Don’t think too hard or scrutinize at this point, just pull photos that you like for the colors, the flowers, the design, what they make you feel or think about, etc.
- Tape together 4 pieces of computer paper to create your ‘canvas’ – a nice big rectangle.
- Then find a time to sit down together and start making your board. You’ll find that the experience is a cross between putting together a puzzle and making a collage. Keep moving the images around until they feel right, and when you’re ready, paste/tape them in place.
Voila!
The neat part is the experience of seeing the final product: sometimes you don’t even know what you want until you see it. And it’s a great filter to have when you’re making final decisions, because you can always hold it up as a reference to whatever you’re evaluating to see if they’re in sync with your vision.
Here’s an example mood board from our wedding:
- The feeling we wanted to capture: a sort of romantic Spanish/Moroccan mood
- The colors: we chose red, blood orange and fuchsia
- We even found some specifics we liked, such as: types of flowers, linens and chairs to use
The proof is in the pudding:
Check out pictures of the final wedding décor for yourself. It should have a similar feel to the mood board above.
THE HEAD TABLE:
A DECORATIVE DETAIL:
GUEST TABLES:
Good luck and have fun with this part of the process!
[...] 2) Create a mood board to drive the development of a strong Brand ID. Unless you have design skills, you are going to have to hire someone to help create your Brand ID. I think one of the greatest advertising tricks is to create a mood board, which is like a collage of images that, together, communicate a feeling of what you are trying to achieve. It is something visual that you can share with your designer (along with the creative brief) to provide direction. Sometimes visuals are better communicators than words, because they elicit feeling. And what’s nice is that as the designer provides you with different options, you can hold them up against the mood board as a filter to help identify the right one. I actually created one for my wedding design too, which you can see in this blog post. [...]
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