3 Decor Items to Buy First for your Wedding

While I was writing my brand new e-book (officially launching tomorrow), I got to thinking the order of decor items that a couple would need to buy for their wedding. Sure, the checklist of all of the decor that one needs for their wedding is impossibly long, although securing the first three things often sets off a wave of productivity. Once these are set in stone, everything else seems to fall in place around them. And what better feeling during designing your wedding when it all starts to seamlessly come together??

Designing a wedding comes with so. many. decisions. What colors? What theme? Where do the tables go? What shape tables do we want? What’s a charger? And so on. Make these first three decisions for your wedding decor and the rest will come easy.

One: Flowers

First, decide if you are going to DIY or hire a professional florist. There are pros and cons to either option, honestly, even though most florists will tell you that you are crazy to attempt to DIY your own flowers. Alas, not everyone can afford a professional florist. That’s OK. Make the decision and get started. You’ll want to decide on your floral color palette, what types of flowers you love (or hate), and what floral pieces your wedding will need. From there, make a DIY plan or hire a professional florist to make your vision come to life.

Some florists book out months, maybe even a year, in advance. We’ve been hired up to 18 months in advance to design flowers for weddings. Securing your flowers at the beginning stages of designing means that you will be able to hire your first pick of florist and you might be able to spread your payments out over the next few months.

Two: Furniture Rentals

Similar to florists, furniture rentals are a first come, first serve industry. Especially if you are looking at one off furniture, like vintage or custom made lounge pieces, or if you are working with boutique rental companies, their inventory often gets snatched up well in advance of an event date.

Even if you are renting your dining tables from a big box rental company, making the decision on what shape and size tables you want now will let you make other design decisions much easier. You’ll know how big your centerpieces should be, what linens to rent, how many table numbers to order, etc.

Three: invitations

Your invitations are the first visual element of your wedding design that your guests get to see. They should match the colors, formality, and aesthetic of the design of your wedding decor. You can choose between a DIY route, buying something pre-designed like on Minted, or hiring a stationery designer to custom design your invitations. Once you have your wedding color palette and mood board done, you can take that to a designer or look on Minted to find a design that matches the best.

When deciding on paper stock and print technique, think about the formality of your wedding. Is it black tie? The invites can reflect that with a thicker paper stock, some metallic foil accents, and pretty hand calligraphy. Are you throwing a casual affair? Use a basic stock, maybe a fun envelope liner, and whimsical postage stamps. Tossing these bad boys in the mail box makes the wedding finally feel real.

There you go! My recommended first 3 decor items to tackle for your wedding design. Have you tackled any of these yet?

 

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