special event decor

What Brides (and Event/Wedding Planners) can Learn from Extreme Cage Fighting

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Chuck Liddell facing off against Rich Franklin...
Image via Wikipedia

What’s the one thing everybody knows about cage fighting? No holds barred. No rules. Can that apply to the bridal design world? Read on. And if you got to this blog by googling “cage fighting bride?” you have got to email me. Because that’s awesome. Etiquette books contain mountains of good advice- and we owe the people who write them a great debt of gratitude. Receiving line order and invitation wording – couldn’t do it without them. People notice sometimes though, that we don’t keep a lot of wedding planning books around the store. Happy to share why: we believe in the “Ultimate Fighting” school of wedding design. We operate by nobody’s rules but our own, and as far as we’re concerned, there are no rules.  That works for us on a few levels.

1)  There are no rules for us in the way we design.  Nothing is off the table, and so all our pieces are developed as individual ideas. We don’t do the cookie-cutter follow the trend thing.

2)  There are no fashion or style rules.  If a bride loves and wants a baby blue and pale yellow theme for her December wedding, we aren’t going to talk her into more “seasonal” colors. Velvet in summer, rhinestones in the morning, snowflakes in July…we color outside the lines.

"out of the box" Prom entryway display - La Quinta prom 2011

3)  There are no rules for who our clientele will be. We would never turn away a wedding for being too small.  Everyone’s celebration is important, and deserves beautiful wedding flowers. We take a budget, work out what can be done, and make it beautiful.

4)  Since we allow our ideas to develop from the ground up, it passes on the “no rules” ethos to our brides and quinceaneras.  They can tell us what they truly dreamed- not just what they think we can do or what the girl next door had at her event. We really listen – we don’t impose a vision of how things “should” be.

So as you plan (your wedding, or your client’s), make sure you’re following your instincts, your dreams and your heart.  Don’t bother so much with rules.  And the only holding that matters, is that of hands, and hearts.

bride and groom in gazebo

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Matches? We don’t need no stinkin’ matches!

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The definition of Matchy-Matchy from Urban Dictionary is as follows:

Often used in fashion blogs. Used to describe an outfit that is too coordinated and consists of too many of the same types of colours, patterns, fabrics, accessories, designer pieces, thematic elements, etc. Can also be used in reference to interior design.

They don’t mention weddings specifically, but how many of us remember the eighties, when weddings were nothing BUT matchy-matchy? When the first thing brides did was select colors, and then proceed to order everything in those colors? We even remember a movie where the bride was asked by her reception venue what color to dye the mashed potatoes so that they’d match the bridesmaids’ dresses.  (Note- we are not linking to a page about said film because it was an artsy independent wedding movie so it broke the Big Studio Wedding Movie Happy Ending rule.  If you really want to see it anyway, google ‘Annabella Sciorra dyed potatoes’).
These days, people tend to choose a palette of colors they like that work well together, based around one favorite color. Basically that one is the one you’d have chosen if it were the eighties.  Then different elements of the wedding complement each other without all being the same exact color.

Check out The Perfect Palette: Palette Library for inspiration – or look at your own closet! A few colors you love will speak to you.  After all to look harmonious and pretty, the bridesmaids dresses don’t even have to match each other, let alone the mashed potatoes.

[gomelpink.jpg]

Bridesmaids and a packet of rice from America’s Matchy Matchiest Wedding of the 20th Century: Luci Baines Johnson. If she could have, she’d have painted the pillars of the white house pink!

Matches? We don’t need no stinkin’ matches!

by

The definition of Matchy-Matchy from Urban Dictionary is as follows:

Often used in fashion blogs. Used to describe an outfit that is too coordinated and consists of too many of the same types of colours, patterns, fabrics, accessories, designer pieces, thematic elements, etc. Can also be used in reference to interior design.

They don’t mention weddings specifically, but how many of us remember the eighties, when weddings were nothing BUT matchy-matchy? When the first thing brides did was select colors, and then proceed to order everything in those colors? We even remember a movie where the bride was asked by her reception venue what color to dye the mashed potatoes so that they’d match the bridesmaids’ dresses.  (Note- we are not linking to a page about said film because it was an artsy independent wedding movie so it broke the Big Studio Wedding Movie Happy Ending rule.  If you really want to see it anyway, google ‘Annabella Sciorra dyed potatoes’).
These days, people tend to choose a palette of colors they like that work well together, based around one favorite color. Basically that one is the one you’d have chosen if it were the eighties.  Then different elements of the wedding complement each other without all being the same exact color.

Check out The Perfect Palette: Palette Library for inspiration – or look at your own closet! A few colors you love will speak to you.  After all to look harmonious and pretty, the bridesmaids dresses don’t even have to match each other, let alone the mashed potatoes.

[gomelpink.jpg]

Bridesmaids and a packet of rice from America’s Matchy Matchiest Wedding of the 20th Century: Luci Baines Johnson. If she could have, she’d have painted the pillars of the white house pink!