Inspiration Board #5: The Nontraditonal, Modern Irish Wedding

A new wedding mood board this week! I had a good friend come to me recently asking for ideas and how to pull several ideas and elements together for an October 10, 2010 wedding. It's quite a popular wedding date since the date exactly translates to 10/10/10. I am currently working on another wedding invitation for the same date.

Here were some mandatories for this particular mood board:
- the roman numeral "X" symbolic of 10/10/10
- nontraditional wedding, no formal church
- some incorporation of Irish traditions
- early afternoon wedding
- reception is a non-sit down (cocktails & hors d'oeuvres)

- some key descriptor words: edgy, modern & Irish influences

And here's what I was able to pull together and push the concept to be visually stronger. I took the roman symbol "X" representing 10/10/10 and merged it with a traditional Irish, Celtic design and created a very unique & bold icon along with a textile Celtic-like pattern that can be incorporated into the branding of their wedding day elements (e.g., wedding invitations, napkins and/or "X" drink menu).

In Irish culture, I just learned that the bride wears a baby blue colored wedding dress which I think is really pretty. However with the wedding & reception already being not-so traditional, I thought it would be fun to push the color palette further once I saw this stunning Laila silk chiffon strapless dress on Bluefly.com. And as soon as I saw this dress, it inspired the color palette for the rest of the wedding with deep blues, turquoise, light blue and the traditional Irish green. Since the reception is like a cocktail hour, I thought the short cocktail dresses for the bridesmaid would complement the bride's dress and be perfect for the festive evening.

Though this is a modern, nontraditional wedding, I still wanted to have some rustic, earthy elements to represent the Irish culture beyond the Celtic motif. A collection of small vintage and eclectic vases from glass to brass materials holding lovely, simplistic arrangements of white & green plants are a nice budget-friendly touch to a cocktail happy hour. Also, what is missing on this mood board that I forgot to add are chunky white pillar candle arrangements to bring warmth to this cool, October evening reception. And it's definitely not Irish unless there are few Guinness glasses with clovers in it. :)