Three wedding trends we’re loving right now

Anyone else love browsing Instagram for wedding inspiration? *raises hand*

Here are some favorites lately…

Unique ceremony backdrops

Fun place cards

Cool hair accessories

Now, who feels totally overwhelmed by all the choices and still isn’t sure what they want for their wedding? *the other one of us raises a hand*

Amanda here: Isabelle and her fiancé are in the thick of decision making and gaining a whole new appreciation for this process! We were talking the other night and I said that my approach is to think about some of the details that are important to you, that will make it feel special and unique. You don’t have to do all. the. (maybe trendy). things. Try to save ideas you like and re-evaluate as you collect them which ones should stay/go. Hopefully at some point you start to see things fit together and it gets easier to know what you want. You’ll hear more from Isabelle on how it’s going soon!

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Valentine's Day Craft-Baking

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day (and today is actually Galentine’s Day) and while we like all the romantic stuff, we’ve always felt that it was also a good opportunity to show how much you love everyone in your life. As a family we often have given each other Valentines and it’s certainly a great holiday for baking cute desserts to share.

For Christmas we had made tiny gingerbread house “mug huggers”, which we talked about in a Christmas baking post. The first time we tried to make them was a ridiculoulsy labor intensive experience because we cut everything out by hand, but THEN we discovered a great shop that sold these tiny cookie cutters. So we made them that way and didn’t want to kill ourselves. We saw she also sold this adorable heart version of the cookie cutter and had to get it.

The tricky part was the recipe since gingerbread is very sturdy and pretty much perfect for construction whereas sugar cookies and shortbread (which is more the flavor and color we wanted) aren’t so forgiving. Ultimately we had pretty good success with this no-spread sugar cookie recipe (the “no-spread” party being important so the pieces don’t change too much during baking). Tip: after cutting out the front and back doors, we realized that it was best if we ‘opened’ the door a bit by pulling the sides just slightly, otherwise some of them weren’t quite wide enough to fit on a regular mug. We had more breakage than with gingerbread, but still ended up with plenty (plus the broken ones just have to get eaten while you’re working… too bad).

Most importantly though, to make sure they looked amazing we stopped at our favorite decoration supply store Home Cake Decorating and went to town making them look like tiny romantic elf homes.

And if you’re searching for some gift ideas, we love this guide from Floret Flowers that offers local and sustainable options.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

XOXO

Amanda + Isabelle

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Our Perfect Picks: tradition vs. innovation

Wedding traditions can be wonderful and a way to connect us to our community or family, rituals passed down reminding us of our shared experience. However, as things change and our culture evolves many of these traditions begin to feel more like burdens or maybe awkward and out of place. We love the creativity in wedding planning and the ability to choose or combine new and old ideas.

Some of our favorite new ideas we have seen…

Bouquet toss upgrade

So this is something people likely have strong feelings about (especially on the I-hate-this-idea-so-much team), but for the sake of talking about options if it’s something you do want to consider we have some ideas. The most obvious choice is to include all the women, or just everyone, why not? It doesn’t have to single out the singles. A fun twist one of our couples chose was to offer a gift card to the winner! That definitely got people on the dance floor and made for a friendly competition.

Anything but white

This is definitely one of the biggest statements you can make simply because it’s so unexpected, but how gorgeous is this?! Sometimes it’s just a hint of color with a contrasting layer of tulle or how about this amazing blue dress. Right now we’re seeing a lot of floral dresses, in bold or muted colors, and it’s just stunning.

Not just cake anymore

This isn’t really breaking news, but if you’re on the fence and feeling like you *have* to have a big wedding cake, consider this your reminder that you should have the dessert you want at your wedding. And if you still want that ‘cake cutting’ moment, you can do the same thing with pie or have a small cake. Or heck, just cut that tiny tart in half! (side note: this is also great for people like Isabelle who don’t have a favorite dessert and can’t decide on just one…)

Have your cake and eat it a year later too

While we’re on the subject of cake, remember that tradition of saving the top tier of your wedding cake in the freezer, wrapped in a million layers and then hoping a year later it was edible? It seems like a lot of people are letting go of this already since enough experiments have been done to show this is mostly a terrible idea.

But we wanted to mention a fun idea that Amanda’s wedding cake vendor offered, which was to make a small cake of your flavor choosing on your anniversary. It was a fun thing to look forward to and enjoy, because well, you could actually enjoy it! Consider asking if that’s something that could be added to your contract if you have always liked the idea.

Don’t be afraid to mix it up

At the end of the day, weddings are about people - family, friends and you as a couple. When picking your wedding party, you think about those relationships and who you want to be standing up there supporting your marriage. We love the idea of choosing those people because of what they mean to you and not whether they would be wearing a dress or pants. Especially with bridesmaids dresses not always matching it’s even easier to switch out a matching suit if that feels more right for you!

We love how family traditions add a special element to weddings, but sometimes it can be so fun to try new things. Don’t be afraid to start your own traditions! If you want to hear Amanda’s thoughts on looking back 10 years later (talk about things changing, ack) you can check out Part I and Part II on the blog.

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Color Inspiration No. 6

It’s been a little while since we last did a color inspiration post, but with wedding planning season in full swing after the holidays, it seemed like the perfect time to think about color palettes again (Isabelle is certainly trying to decide on one!). Lilac is such a beautiful color (and flower) and we wanted to showcase its versatility. For example, it can really change just by pairing it with a different tone of green. We also love the trend of using a whole range of shades in the same family like we show in the last inspiration palette. As always, click on the images to check out some beautiful Instagram profiles. Enjoy!

Bold look - pair the softness of lilac with striking emerald

Fresh new take - turn up the saturation on lilac and mint

Classic interpretation - mixing lilac with soft hues of pink

It’s fun for us to think about all these color options and we hope they are helpful if you’re starting to plan a wedding, party or maybe doing some renovations. We can’t wait to share more of what Isabelle and her fiancé have planned for their wedding!

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Perfect Pairings: a new blog series for 2020!

Happy New Year! On a personal note, we feel incredibly grateful to have this business and for all of your support. We have amazing clients and get to work with some of the best vendors, it’s really one of the most enjoyable things AND we get to do it together! We have also really loved being able to use this blog as a place to share what we’ve learned about weddings, maybe provided some inspiration if you’re planning a wedding and also talked about fun things like cocktails and travel. Our hope is that the majority of the content would have a little something for everyone, whether or not they are planning or involved in a wedding.

In thinking about what we wanted to add this year, we couldn’t help going back to one of the highlights for us of wedding day coordination: meeting and working with really great vendors! We have some lined up, but if you are a wedding vendor and want to be part of a guest post on the blog, we would love to hear from you. You can email us at perfectlypairedweddings@gmail.com with the subject heading “Perfect Pairings”. Our goal with this series is for it to both be a wedding resource with great content from experts in the industry as well as a fun behind the scenes tour. The format will be a little different every time, but we’re pretty excited about it and hope you are too!