Symmetry. It’s that all-important balance an artist or musician achieves by marrying different elements of a composition together into one harmonious whole. These elements don’t need to be exact mirror images of each other. In fact, it would be boring if they were. They just need to be consistent enough to work together in order to produce that unique wow factor.
Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. Each of these compositions weave disparate elements together to create a bold and memorable story in several acts.
The question we at Pink Monkey ask is this: What’s stopping you from thinking about your wedding in the same way?
By all means, choose a theme, a fantastic catering company and the color palette you love. Make sure that it resonates with both your taste and personality. But don’t stop there. Let us help you compose a wedding that tells a story from start to finish. Perhaps it is the story of how you met. Maybe you’d like to stage your wedding as allegory — slow and steady wins the race, or all’s well that ends well. Or maybe you’d like to deconstruct the very concept of weddings, turning yours into performance art.
We encourage you to step outside the norm and really explore the idea of building a consistent wedding aesthetic throughout the three main “acts” of the event — rehearsal dinner, ceremony and reception. Here, we’ve imagined three distinct scenarios in order to illustrate how you can weave a specific motif into your special day. For the next few minutes, let your imagination take a stroll through what could be.
Traditional Beauty
One romantic young couple who fell in love during their year abroad in France opted for a sophisticated barn wedding venue, and chose to incorporate the elements of the French countryside they had discovered together into their wedding, from start to finish.
For the rehearsal dinner, they sought to replicate as precisely as possible the look and feel of a dinner al fresco at a French restaurant. White linens and long tables with antique pewter and silver bowls of lavender foreshadowed the drapery and subtle glam of the reception, where pinprick metallic screens and curtains formed a muted backdrop. The colors — white, silver and lavender — were soft and elegant and played well against the rustic furnishings.
In fact, the bride decided to have only two flowers throughout — lavender and white roses. The flowers helped to define the stages of the event, with simple lavender centerpieces at the rehearsal dinner, mixed bouquets and arrangements at the ceremony, and dramatic sconces of white roses decorating the reception.
The catered menu of classic French cuisine, complemented with local Colorado game meats, also helped to reinforce the consistency of this Continental aesthetic. The couple even hired traditional Basque dancers to perform at the rehearsal dinner, using their musicians to provide background music for the ceremony and dance tunes for the reception. And of course, they served French wine throughout — from simple rosé at the al fresco dinner to authentic Champagne during the toasts
Cinderella Story
A 30-something professional couple who had both been married before and had children from both first marriages decided to save the kid-free activities for their honeymoon and make the wedding into something fun for the whole family. They embraced a Disney aesthetic that was polished but not too serious, either. In fact, what most of the guests knew very well was that the bride, a successful software designer, hardly needed rescuing. The Cinderella theme they chose was therefore slightly ironic, adding to the fun.
The reception dinner was decorated in bright colors, with carved pumpkins and silver Cinderella carriage centerpieces. Just as the guests sat down to eat, the groom arrived dressed as Prince Charming, carrying complete with a glass slipper. The theme carried into the ceremony itself, with the couples’ daughters dressed as princesses and music from the 1950 soundtrack of the film ushering in the bride. And of course, there was a grand ballroom reception. A candy bar and magic tricks helped to keep the children entertained in the early part of the evening; afterward, a babysitting service was provided for couples who wanted to stay and dance the night away.
The Unexpected
A documentary filmmaker and an aspiring artist were faced with a dilemma when it came time for them to plan their wedding. The bride’s father, who lived 2,000 miles away, had been ill and was unable to fly out to attend the ceremony. They toyed with the idea of having the wedding in her hometown but had their heart set on a Denver venue.
The landed on an ingenious solution. They decided to hold the ceremony in the bride’s hometown a few weeks before the reception, inviting just the wedding party. A friend shot black-and-white footage of the rehearsal dinner and ceremony, which the bride later edited. She added interviews from members of both hers and the groom’s family, talking about memories of the two as they were growing up and showing scenes from both their neighborhoods.
The Denver reception venue was a modern warehouse space, which the groom set up like a gallery installation, showing loops of footage from the wedding and interviews playing at strategic angles and mounting stills from the wedding on the walls, complete with descriptions. The groom also set up a private room where guests could view the interviews and wedding footage in its entirety when they got tired of dancing. The wedding itself had been more traditional, and the black-and-white scenes made it seem archival. The couple played up on this concept by hosting the reception as you would a gallery opening, with circulating tapas and drinks on trays, rather than a sit-down reception dinner.
Let your wedding tell your story. Pink Monkey can help you to achieve an event with lasting impact by building a consistent aesthetic throughout the event to create a seamless narrative that celebrates you both.