Tips on Trends

Today’s Inspiration

Thanks to sites such as Pinterest, the whole concept of the perfect inspiration has become bigger than ever — but that’s not always a good thing, says bridal consultant Valarie Kirkbride Falvey, owner of Mentor-based Kirkbrides Wedding Planning & Design. “When you focus too heavily on a style, it’s not as timeless as when you have it as an influence,” she says.

When brides come to her with ideas they’ve found online, such as a long table with mismatched chairs set in the middle of a field, she’s got to bring them back down to reality. “It’s not really practical for a real wedding,” she explains, noting that someone has to find and potentially buy the pieces, then drag them out into a field.

◆ Party Pitfall: Think about your budget, wedding date and how much stress you want to add to your wedding day before you start pinning wildly extravagant ideas to your Pinterest board. “Not all creative ideas are good ones,” she says.

◆ Wedding Win: Little things make a big difference, Falvey says. “We’ve used doilies as place settings, and that looks really pretty,” she says. “We’ve wrapped strips of lace around glass cylinders, then put water and floating candles in them. The thing I try to focus on is the overall look. Everybody’s working with a budget; it’s always about the overall look.”

Invites Get Simple

From fewer inserts to more streamlined fonts and colors, wedding invitations are getting a modern makeover, say Katie Pickard and Melissa Diemert of Rocky River’s Paper Trails. Brides willing to throw caution (and some old-school etiquette) out the window can order their invites from vendors who will set up an online RSVP site that keeps track of guests responses and even food choices. However, remember, “different generations
may not appreciate it,” warns bridal
consultant Diemert.

◆ Party Pitfall: Bigger is not always better, so don’t get carried away. “Sometimes people go overboard with color,” Diemert notes. “Just because your wedding is blue and red and gold, it doesn’t mean all those colors have to be on the invitation.” The same rule applies to iconographic trends such as birds. “Sometimes you don’t want to have jumbo birds on an invitation,” she notes.

◆ Wedding Win: One of Diemert’s brides chose silver shimmer invites, with a faint image of doves in the background. “If you carry that same theme throughout your floral arrangement and other things,” she says, “I think people appreciate it more than just a giant, enormous bird on the invitation.”