It Doesn’t Have to Match

Actually, I’d rather it mean something.

There’s a funny thing that happens when you start planning a wedding. At some point, someone asks what your colors are, and suddenly those three colors are expected to make a shocking number of decisions for you. Do the invitations match the flowers, then the flowers should match the bridesmaid dresses, what about the cocktail napkins matching the sign, and the sign matches the menus right? And before you know it, you’ve created a beautifully coordinated wedding.

NOT exactly an issue... but here me out.

I love a beautiful wedding. I’ve made a career out of caring probably a little too much about paper, ribbon, signage, flowers and dont get me started on the way a stamp looks. Honetly all the tiny things most normal people would never notice. But after 15 years of designing for weddings, I’ve realized the details I remember most usually aren’t the ones that matched perfectly. They’re the ones that meant something.

It’s the cocktail named after your dog, the tiny illustration of the restaurant where you had your first date, your grandmother’s handwriting tucked somewhere unexpected, or the late-night snack from the place you used to go when you first started dating. Those things may have absolutely nothing to do with your color palette, but they have everything to do with the two people getting married.

That’s really where The Details came from.

I didn’t make this because I think your wedding needs 25 more things. Please, God, no.

You already have enough decisions to make. I made it because there are so many little places throughout a wedding where you can quietly tell part of your story, and after doing this for as long as I have, I realized most couples probably don’t even know all of those opportunities are there.

Of course there are the obvious ones, like your invitations and vows, but there’s also moments and posts you've probably never thought of, like yes, the bathroom. So I started collecting them and thinking about all the different ways each one could become something more personal.

That eventually became The Details, a free list of 25 places throughout your wedding that you can make your own, with ideas for personalizing each one. Some are sentimental, some are funny, some cost practically nothing, and some are as simple as choosing something because it has a story behind it instead of choosing it because it matches.

My hope is that you find yourself saying, “Wait, that would be SO us.”

But please DON'T do all 25.

Seriously. This is not another wedding checklist, and you do not get a prize for personalizing every square inch of your reception. I would much rather you scroll through the list, steal the ideas that spark something, and happily ignore everything that doesn’t.

Maybe you find five things you love. Maybe you find one. One really good detail that makes your mom tear up, makes your friends laugh, or makes someone immediately understand why you chose it is more interesting to me than 25 perfectly coordinated things that could have belonged to anyone.

Those are the details I love most as a designer. The ones where someone sees it and immediately thinks, “Of course they did that.” Not because your goal should be to create a wedding unlike anything the world has ever seen, but because when your people walk into it, there should be little pieces that feel unmistakably familiar.

Your wedding doesn’t need to look like nobody else’s.

It should feel like nobody else’s could have been yours.

So, what feels like you?

I put all 25 ideas together in The Details, and it’s completely FREE. Pour a glass of something, open it up with your fiancé, scroll through the ideas and see which ones start a conversation. REMEMBER, You don’t need all 25.

You just need the ones that make the two of you look at each other and say, “Yep. That’s us.”

[GET THE DETAILS FREE → START HERE

Xo, Michaelene S.