…dreaming of monograms…

I keep planning to put up some well-thought, organized posts about practical things and planning and such…but I think it may be time to give up on having the neatly packaged blog I'd imagined. My wedding inspiration and the things I find myself wanting to write about are not very precise. They come and random times in no logical sort of order, so I think it might be time to just give in to the natural process.

I'm so excited about this idea that I wanted to share! I have always envied those brides who are able to pull off a magnificently cohesive theme in their weddings while finding the balance between clever and cheesy. I've really hoped to find some sort of unifying idea that DG and I can carry out through the whole of our wedding. One that feels like "us". We started talking long ago about getting coordinating (read: non-matching) tattoos. I like the symbolism of such an idea, but I knew it would be difficult to come up with something that didn't seem trite. One day, however, it occurred to me that if I could find the perfect idea to design our monogram around, it could be really cool to use that design element in our tattoos. Thus my search began. And this serious of random thoughts followed...

First I found this monogram that I absolutely loved (via Project Wedding):


The bride and groom carried their shoe theme all the way through the wedding.  You can see all the images by photographer Joel Flory here: http://blog.joelflory.com/says/wedding/julie-matts-wedding.html  His work is amazing. 

I thought it would be so cool to carry some similar theme throughout our day.  But what was significant to us?  Next I saw a magazine add for these fantastic pendants from Tiffany & Co:

Gorgeous, no?  So the wheels were turning.

DG and I have often discussed this little dream I have of going to the Ponte Vecchio in Florence to place our lock on the bridge as so many couples have done over time.  You can read more about the tradition here.  We've promised to do it someday.  The first gift DG ever gave me was the padlock and key I received for Valentine's Day.  Thus, between the meaning behind the symbol and the aesthetics of having an image to design around, I thought it would be great to play up this lock and key theme for the wedding.  Now I find myself searching the internet for inspiration, and it certainly does abound.  We'll probably be sending our save the dates soon, so I need to get to work on our monogram and a general theme for all of our print materials.  SO EXCITED! 

Hopefully I can find or come up with some graphic version of an image like this, and we'll start there.