If you plan to incorporate a theme into your wedding, it’s best to decide this early on. After all, once you’ve got the theme down, you can choose your color scheme, order the food and the cake, decide on your décor, and plan for any little details! The theme itself acts a lot like a gateway, and very few decisions come before it. So, how do you choose the ideal wedding theme?
Picking your wedding theme is a big deal you shouldn’t rush into. You need to know you’ve got a good idea that’s creative in just the right way for you and your partner, and it’s hard to spin that into something workable overnight. So how can you go about this properly? With the ideas below, we’ll help you shape the process and finally land on a theme that’ll really express the two people coming together.
How to Choose the Ideal Wedding Theme
Photo Credit: Donna via Pexels CC0 License
Who Are You and Your Partner?
The first thing to think about is you (plural). Because the two people getting married need to be the center of attention on the big day, and the theme will reflect that. After all, it’s easy to get swept up in the romance of a white wedding, but is that who you truly are as a couple?
Or do you both hate the color white and want to get married wearing red or black, and be surrounded by a theme that isn’t traditionally romantic but means a lot to both of you? Think on this for a while, talk to your partner about it, and make sure your theme feels like you.
Where Are You Hosting the Wedding?
Choose the ideal wedding theme that suits your venue. The venue is usually the second thing you decide about the wedding, after the date and before the theme. So once you’ve got a venue in mind, make sure you pick a theme that matches their capability. Let’s walk through an example:
A barn wedding is a perfect setting if you choose an eco-friendly and/or rustic theme that highlights your old souls and love of the environment. However, a barn wedding is an odd locale to host a wedding that has a nautical style at its center – it just doesn’t make sense based on where you’re holding the ceremony! While you don’t literally have to be near the sea for a nautical theme, a venue that is the polar opposite of the theme will make it hard to cultivate the ocean image you’re really going for.
How Many People Will Be Attending?
The elements of your wedding theme need to be convenient, as well as creative and expressive. Because when you’re asking people to file in, take their seats, and then attend the reception afterwards, there can’t be decorations getting in the way! And a more crowded wedding won’t benefit from over-decked halls. If you want a Halloween themed wedding, low hanging bats and cobwebs could even be a safety hazard in this scenario.
Plus, if you’ve got more than 20 to 30 guests coming along, it might even be hard to finance the theme you’ve chosen. Remember, the more people attending the more everything you’ll need.
And when it comes to ideas for dresses to wear to a wedding, you’ve got to keep your attendees’ budget in mind. While everyone coming is costume, or special attire to fit into your theme sounds like a fun idea, it would be totally unreasonable to ask them to fork out more than $1000 for a high quality fairy tale costume!
What’s Your Budget?
Finally, it’s time to consider the money you’ve got to work with. How are you going to pay for your theme? It helps you determine whether you will just have little touches of your wedding theme here and there, or if you can pull out all the stops. Also, some wedding themes are infinitely more expensive than others, especially when combined with everything else you’ve got to pay for.
A luxury, celebrity style wedding is hard to do when you’ve only got $200 left over for the decorations, and you might not have the time to find workarounds and shop in thrift stores for secondhand items you can use.
And use your budget wisely. There is a multitude of places to incorporate your wedding theme – ceremony aisle décor, the design of your wedding cake, your reception dinner menu, fun signature drinks at the bar, thematic centerpieces, favors, signs, table settings, just to name a few – it can be easy to go overboard (and over budget)!
Think of the things that will make the most impact on your wedding for you and your guests, and focus on those. Have talented friends or family members? Maybe your friend who loves to paint can paint fairytale scenes on a backdrop.
Theming your wedding is a fun thing to do, but it does require some extra thought. You don’t want guests refusing their invitations simply because they can’t afford to come! And you’ll always need to match up your venue with the style and theme you eventually go for; if you’re getting married in an old British castle, it’ll be hard to dress it up for a 1950s-style Americana wedding!
Did you have a wedding theme for your ceremony and reception? Let us know in the comments below!
* This is a contributed post
I hope you found this information useful!
Hearts, Joy, Love!
Jean
For planning help and unique ideas for your wedding call or text me at 937-581-3647, or email me at [email protected]!
